


A Love of Dead Things

by Teland



Category: The X-Files
Genre: 1998, M/M, Not 2008, Not 2018, There are EPITHETS, This Fic Was Written In 1998, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-06-15
Updated: 1998-06-15
Packaged: 2020-11-27 12:16:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 28,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20948189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teland/pseuds/Teland
Summary: The approximation of life.





	1. Freeze

**Author's Note:**

> So, way back when, this was a series of a vignettes that I wrote one at a time over the course of... weeks? Months? I no longer have the faintest clue. I still love vampire AUs, though. Like... I'm going to write another one *imminently*. So... hail to continuity?

//Too late I'm too late again...//

Mulder pounded breathlessly into the abandoned penthouse   
apartment, snagging his trench on the splintered remains of   
the door his quarry had

//How did he *do* that?//

shattered on the way in. 

"Krycek, freeze! I won't hurt you!"

//much...//

He was rewarded with a snort of pure amusement from the   
younger man, impossible to interpret it otherwise even with   
only a view of his back. Alex was perched half-in, half-out   
of the window.

"I suppose the gun is merely a formality, then, not to be   
taken seriously?"

Mulder glanced at his SIG and tucked it away irritably. "Do   
we *ever* take them seriously?"

//Did I really just say that?//

Alex finally turned to face him, then, but did not move   
from the window. The moonlight was strong tonight, and the   
younger man's face was a mass of shadows and moon-struck   
marble. The eyes were wide and unreadable.

//As if they ever told me anything I could understand...//

A low chuckle, a smile of swords, and the agent wondered if   
holstering his gun had been very wise...

"Very true, Mulder... but I have places to be."

Without another word Alex leaped, and for a heart-stopping   
moment all Mulder could see was the flap of useless leather   
wings, denim rippling and shifting in a killing wind...

"Alex!"

The older man broke his paralysis and rushed for the   
window, barking his hips as he searched the ground far   
below for signs of carnage. Nothing.

//What the fuck?//

An impossibly strong hand grabbed him by the back of the   
neck and hauled him to the roof.

"Alex, eh?"

"Wha--"

Cold... those lips were cold and absurdly harder than all   
of his shameful imaginings and yes that must be why his   
nipples were suddenly brittle shards and he was shaking   
himself apart had to get closer find the heat so cold but   
when the arm slipped around his waist and brought him   
close there was no warmth to be had ice ice in his soul and   
it was right...

He felt a growl against his throat and waited, panting, for   
whatever truths would be revealed tonight. A wet, sharp   
tongue lapped chill sweat away before finding his ear.

"No, Mulder. Not tonight. Not from me."

And the arm was gone, and he was alone.


	2. This Night

Mulder jittered and hummed in the anonymous rental. He   
didn't look out of place. Just another random man in the   
club's parking lot. Perhaps a little older, perhaps a   
little wealthier, but obviously there for only one reason.

//Why am I doing this?

//It's not like I'm accomplishing anything anywhere else...

//Does it matter?//

There had been a string of disappearances, though none so   
unusual as to require his presence in an official light. It   
was that sort of neighborhood, the men were in that   
profession, but Mulder had his

//needs//

suspicions. 

******

Three weeks ago there had been a rooftop, ten days ago a   
taunting 

//glimpse//

hint of presence outside his apartment. Four days ago,   
giddy with 

//nightmares... such a silly word for those... visions and   
wishes and why couldn't you hold me a little longer you   
bastard?//

sleep deprivation and the unbelievable cruelty of a belief   
confirmed, he'd laughed quietly to himself, taped a jaunty   
little 'A' to his window, and fallen asleep. 

And awakened to a bemused smile, and a cool, dry palm on   
his brow. He'd said,

"Krycek!"

and meant to be harsh, but, of course, inevitably, it   
didn't come out like that. Mulder remembered the rooftop   
again, wondered if once your breath is stolen you ever got   
it back. And then

******

Back in the car, in the present, in real time, Mulder was   
shaking his head. He knew his own tendency to over-  
dramatize events, and it was far, far too easy to do so   
with the man- shaped 

//temptation//

wickedness that was Alex. Alex. Alex. Too much like his   
heart, and not enough. And here he was, a 

//sleepless//

mere 96 hours from that moment and he was so very tired,   
and he was waiting for a man.

******

"You... called?" A playfully ironic glance at the window.   
The apartment was dark, the greys of his existence made   
greyer, vaguer in the absence of even a puddle of   
lamplight. And yet, the 

//mockery//

humor was clear.

Jangle-creak-thump and Krycek was in the armchair across   
from him and Mulder was sitting up and how did that happen?   
He raised a hand to his burning forehead. He didn't think   
he was sick, but in the absence of that hand's chill...

A glance and the bastard was checking his watch. No weapons   
in evidence. Smell of leather and complacency. His eyes   
narrowed. 

"What do you want, Mulder?"

He wished he could only hear the ostentatious weariness,   
ignore the tinge of pleading. A little selective deafness   
and the rage could grow. The old, familiar dance, why-did-  
you where were-you smack and it would begin again. 

Mulder's nape tingled as he locked eyes with his guest. 

//Oh yes, and how did you pull me, literally single-handed,   
to the roof?

//Maybe, this time, we can ask a question we don't already   
know the answer to?//

Mulder opened his mouth to speak, but the words weren't   
there. 

*****

The green of the digital dashboard clock was luminous in   
the darkness of the car. Brightly, cheerfully useless.   
There was no reason to study it so intensely, but there he   
was. 

Mulder ran a hand along the dark blue plastic, tapped long   
fingers in rough time to the *real* clock in his head, then   
aimed for counterpoint. 

tap 

//And why were you outside my apartment *before* I called   
if you didn't want me, too?//

tap tap

If he were to be completely honest with himself, Mulder   
would acknowledge that he'd begun the hunt the moment Alex

//left me cold and wanting//

tap

had left him on that rooftop. It was just one simple kiss,   
and then another, yet his mind kept returning to them again   
and again... Probably because he was making such an effort   
to avoid thinking about them.

tap tap

Of course, the alternatives weren't especially pleasant. He   
wondered if other people were ever actively worried that   
their bosses were, quite literally, out to get them. Brief   
smile in neon streaked gloom, but then he thought of   
Scully, who had made it quite clear that she was tired of   
patching up windmill slashes.

tap tap--

"Damn."

And the rhythm was lost. Really, it was long past time to   
muse on it, wallow, if necessary. The only way to get past 

//an obsession//

a problem like this one was to worry it to... death. He   
*had* been over-dramatizing, painting the kiss in broad   
strokes of passion,

//Wouldn't it have to be? Have we ever done anything that   
wasn't writ large?

//Every betrayal, every punch, every needless touch...//

the man himself carved and shaped in

*****

alabaster and shadows. They seemed in constant battle on   
the younger man's face and he was fascinated. He realized   
he was staring, but he had to know... something about war   
and desire and what would win... But then the flesh around   
those burning eyes crinkled and folded... so deeply it made   
Mulder wince in sympathy. It was impossible to tell himself   
that he was faced with anything but a man with a soul, and   
that wasn't what he wanted.

"What do you want from me, Mulder? Don't you know what I   
am?"

"What are you talking about, Krycek? I don't want anything   
from you."

And Krycek had simply stared, and it seemed, it did seem as   
though the younger man would just leave, walk away from   
whatever this was Mulder would not let himself name. But   
then, as though he had been dreaming, Alex was right there   
before him and holding his face... and smiling some more.

Caress of fingertips and he felt as though he were burning,   
as if he were pure flame in the wake of the merciless   
chill. And slow tracery slow and brittle down his cheek and   
down his throat... 

//Yes I'll toss my head back just so and if you take this   
opportunity to taste me well then I was only trying to   
search your eyes--//

... and then he'd taken his hand away, and Mulder was   
burning again... Oh, it was even worse after the touch was   
gone. 

//Do I need to be broken, then, before you'll do this for   
me?//

Again, he'd started to speak, but this time his mouth was   
claimed and it was just as 

//right//

soothing as he remembered and oh, please, won't you touch   
me? And then, there was no denying this memory, he had   
raised his hands and tried to pull the other man closer,   
but it was like trying to move bedrock.

//Am I allowed any dignity in this, at all?//

He'd moaned, and tried to push Krycek away instead. That,   
too, failed, and the kiss just went on and on, implacable,   
inevitable. A tiny freedom, smooth lips, hard and silken,   
parted and the older man darted his tongue inside.

An instant of pain, but it had seemed far more important to   
stay inside this chill, strangely dry place than soothe the   
hurt. He'd felt more than heard Krycek's growl, but   
suddenly he was pulled close and the force on his tongue   
and the cat rasp and then he was on the couch again. 

Dazed and staring and the younger man was no statue after   
all... He was panting and angry, color hi--

//*What* color?//

And Mulder began to laugh, knots of tension he hadn't been   
aware of unraveling with each gust of mirth, leaving him a   
slack-limbed sprawl of flesh.

"You did that on purpose."

"Where's your follow-through, *Alex*?"

A bundling of the flesh around that teasing mouth, even   
more disturbing that anything could disturb that perfect   
smooth mask, marble to milk and all he'd had to do was   
provoke the other man to anger. Again, it had appeared as   
though he were leaving, movement so fast as to seem   
hallucination, though there had been nothing of clarity   
this night.

"What do I need to say to make you stay?"

And the stutterrush of hinted movement froze in a flap of   
black leather at his door.

"There's nothing you can say that would make me believe you   
want what I can give you, Mulder."

"Then why won't you take what *you* want?"

"How do you know I haven't already?"

And he was 

******

still alone in this car and the hour crept from time to   
give up to quarter past insanity and Mulder really had no   
guarantees that Alex would come this night, or that he'd   
allow Mulder to see him if he did.

//What am I doing here?//

Leg bouncing so long it seemed like stillness... until   
something bumped his shin. Mulder's heart gave a sickening   
lurch before he remembered the thermos of coffee he'd   
brought. 

Rip pour rip pour... another comforting mini-rhythm,   
perfect to distract him from the terribly monotonous turns   
of his own mind. Another packet of sugar and another until   
the dead 

//clothed//

boys were properly faceless again.

//They haven't been found, could be runaways...

//But they're not.// 

... and showers of white powder glittering redly in the   
glare from the club's sign didn't remind him of Alex at   
all.

Warm and sweet and he could swear he felt the caffeine   
working already, but it was oddly unsatisfying.

//Like everything else.//

And his tongue had never stopped aching.

click-chock

And Alex was there with a gust of exhaust-tinged and deadly   
air, calm and perfect just to his right. Mulder poured the   
coffee back into the thermos, closed it tightly and glanced   
at the clock.

Half-past decency and he reached to place a hand on the   
younger man's shoulder. Not even a flinch. Alex still   
wouldn't look at him. Mulder squeezed and longed for a hand   
to hold. Brief twitch of lips the color of frosted petals   
and he was being grasped, awkwardly.

"You know I'm a killer."

"You were always a killer."

Dry husk of a chuckle. "But that was just my *job*..."

Mulder let a finger trace the hard bulge of muscle along   
the thumb. "And now it's your vocation. Your life."

The laughter was gone. "I'm not alive, Mulder." and then   
Alex was meeting his eyes, finally. "We... we might have   
had something, once. I used to dream... But if I took you   
the way you think you want me to, there'd be no going back.   
I can't--"

"You'd hesitate to kill me?"

A jerk, a moue of distaste. "Is that really what you want   
from me?"

Too many questions, too many lies and Mulder could feel the   
other man prepare to leave.

"Please, Alex--"

"You should let me leave now, Mulder." 

Silent plea in a caress, answered with a gasp and dark,   
humorless laughter. A pause.

"All right, there are only two other choices. I take you   
and I kill you, or I take you and we... we go on.   
Together.... At least until you've been trained. Christ,   
Mulder, why do you want this?"

The older man wanted to put his head in his hands, wanted   
to hold himself and rock, *something*. However, he was   
irrationally positive that the only thing keeping Alex in   
the car was his own shaky hand gripping Alex's as

//uselessly//

tightly as he could. Near silence for a while in the car,   
only his own harsh breath to take some of the weight away.

"Please, just tell me why."

//He wants this... just needs a reason...

//How can I give him a reason when I don't understand any   
of this?

//Does it matter?//

"Do you think you're the only one who wants answers? Maybe   
I can--"

"Don't talk in maybes, Mulder. There's no maybe here."

"I want you. I can't *not*... I want... I want it to be   
over. Isn't that enough?"

//It is... please believe me...//

Flare of pain as he was gripped far too tightly for a   
moment and then he was being spun, awkward tangle of elbows   
and knees, head slamming against the driver side window.   
Cool brush of skin against his jaw and he was ready, aching   
for it, but the lips only found his ear again.

"Last chance... I... I can't--" The voice was hoarse,   
needful as his own dreams and 

//Wait, wait, did we ever decide what you would do to me?

//Does it matter?//

Mulder locked his arms around the other man and held on.   
"Do it, Alex..."

And he did, sharp and deep and Mulder was moaning... yes,   
there it was, his breath was back for this and he cried out   
for the pain he was being torn open and apart by

pulse

Alex and with each lap each indecently hungry pull his soul   
was flowing snapshots flickering, shattering

pulse

so much slower now, easy with no choice left at all, good-  
bye good-bye and he was being gathered and held. It was   
blissful, this floating, this dance on the edge of 

//forever//

nothing, a feather in a gale. The voice at his ear was slow   
and lovely, but had never lost its edge of hunger. He   
couldn't quite pick the sounds apart into words, found   
himself dimly mystified that he could hear anything at all.   
Mulder decided that it was nonsense, and let himself drift   
and fall, slowly, slowly, against that column before him. A   
hand was nudging and pulling at the back of his skull,   
arranging him just so.

//Thank you, Alex... I... never thought you would but thank   
you...//

And he wanted to whisper and he thought he might whisper   
but in the end he allowed himself rest, images continuing   
to blink and then fade... flashes of light, screams and   
kisses, red hair and dark hair and there was a hand in his   
hair too fast through the strands for him to decide whether   
it carded or weaved and he was pressed closer no no and--

"Drink, damn you, Mulder--"

He wasn't going to do it, he'd squinted himself shut there   
was no way but when the first splash hit his lips it was a   
benediction.

pulse

//No...//

And when next he was back to something like himself, he was   
locked to Alex's throat, seamless and his body was somehow,   
somehow, becoming a match for Alex's, and he could curse   
the gearshift and

pulse

the universe was dragging itself back with each iron rush   
and Mulder longed to weep at the intrusion but it was too   
good, sweet and thick and he was a part of this, equal and   
powerful in his own right and when the light t-shirt under   
his fingers dared keep him from the cool, smooth skin he'd   
long known lay just there he tore it off with ease,   
treasuring the laughter and the gasps in equal measure as

//Mine//

only his due.

pulse

And he was full, wired like cocaine and brandy, nuzzling   
and lapping, tingling, flashing like glitter rubbing   
himself against Alex for more of *this* and he'd never felt   
so

//Alive?//

and the bright, raspy chuckles beneath him were hollow   
against the boom of a million doors being shut. The   
universe had woken him to show him... what?

Soft caress and he was being turned to gaze into Alex's   
eyes and there was something there that spoke of yes and   
want and forever...

The shudders passed quickly; the need spiraled up and up,   
an ache so exquisite as to demand indulgence, so basic as   
to deride the concept of satiety. Fingers in his hair   
again... tugging.

//I can allow this.//

And he hoped the night would never end, because sometimes   
the taste of death is a lot like love. 

******


	3. Never So Alive

"C'mon, I want to show you something."

Mulder was sprawled in the passenger seat of the rental,   
gazing blankly out the window, and still, so still.

//I'm dead.//

The thought had no power in the absence of light, of his   
father, of any comforting stereotype. Utterly impossible to   
accept it rationally, not with the strange machine-fur of   
blue velour chafing his cheek, the taste of Alex lingering   
in his mouth. 

A hand fell on his shoulder, and it gave the older man   
focus. 

//How long have we been sitting here?

//Where is here?//

Mulder blinked once, losing himself briefly in the simple   
smoothness of lid over cornea, brush of lashes against his   
face. Turning, his movements were fluid, awkward in speed   
and painlessness. No ache there, no pull there... Mulder   
cried out softly and the hand tightened.

"It's OK... it's all right. You'll get used to it---"

Shaking his head, flooded with the impossibly clear   
impression of seat and leather and skin and dash and pale,   
pale skin and--

//What have I done?//

He put his hands to his face, allowed himself to be pulled   
into Alex's embrace. Soft, husky words at his ear; Mulder   
was helpless to keep them from mutating into sense. Round   
sounds, need sounds, please-it's-all-right sounds... The   
older man buried his face against the throat; Alex   
automatically lifted his chin, made it easier and there was   
*something* coiling in his belly.... Mulder bit down hard. 

Too hard. The hand in his hair tightened reflexively as the   
flesh tore under his teeth... slow and cold and he didn't   
need this tried to pull back but it was so good...

"Ahh-- Mulder... Easy, you can have--"

... and there was really nothing like that voice, the   
shifts of a body in the too-small car, offering and he   
pulled out his fangs just to feel the tug of

//healing must be already//

flesh and lapping helplessly

//Would he let me kill him?//

and Alex was moaning, petting him, lost in his own pleasure   
and this was easier to cope with than the weakness and   
fear, better that it be blood and flesh and want, better to   
take Alex's surrender for granted and he was just as still   
and solid and--

Yanked into a kiss of something like triumph and yes he   
could do that, too. Lips and teeth and his own name in the   
caesura of shared, useless breath. Less broken than trailed   
off, a distracted speech, stuttering to a close with words   
falling randomly there, and there, and again on his mouth   
before pulling back. Mulder let himself fall into the ring   
of green around the younger man's eyes, briefly saw a tiny   
Mulder skid over the limpid black of the pupil to dance and   
dance--

"Come with me."

Snapped back again, looking down into the calm, serious   
face of his lover, Mulder nodded. 

Difficult to make it out of the car, tangled in each other   
as they were. Krycek hit the ground hard, chuckled at the   
sight of the older man trying to extricate himself from a   
surprisingly possessive seatbelt. 

"I think we could've done that better."

Mulder finally spun himself out of the little trap, closed   
his eyes as fast as he could but

//trees water bright bright moonlight trees water..//

not quite fast enough to avoid the startlingly clear   
images. He rocked on his heels, trying to push back the   
analysis. 

//Every image a work of art... I can't do this...//

Again, an embrace.

"I know what you're going through, Mulder." Constant, low-  
grade nuzzle over his cheek and ear, gesture of comfort   
just a little too urgent... "We all do this at first. I can   
help."

"Alex..."

//This is too much.

//Make it stop.

//I never wanted to need you.//

The younger man never stopped the animal brushings,   
occasionally planting a kiss, pulling Mulder out and out   
and stab at his throat too quick but exhilarating. 

"Will you let me help, Mulder?"

Mulder looked down at his flexing hands, stilled them in   
the fabric of his jeans.

//Too loose... I need to gain--

//Jesus, God...//

"What is it, Alex?"

"We're going swimming."

Slow blink and he didn't *want* to laugh but it was   
absurd.... He looked up to find Alex's eyes gleaming greyly   
in the moonlight, lips quirked and balanced on the edge of   
laughter. Impulse to shake his head again, rapidly quelled,   
and then Alex was shrugging out of his jacket, pulling   
himself out of his clothes. 

Mulder stared, hungry in too many ways to count. March air   
was clean this far from civilization, but the breeze only   
brought him Alex. Mulder reached out, laid his thumbs flat   
against dusky rose nipples standing in sharp relief to the   
milk-white chest. Arch and a gasp and a hand gripping his   
wrist, bringing it to cool, silky lips.

"Later, I promise." Nip and release. "Take your clothes   
off."

Oh, he was glad to be wearing the ratty old t-shirt, worn   
and soft and it felt good pulled taut against his skin and   
he could lean right into it...

More need sounds and before he could get the shirt fully   
off there was a hand tugging at the waistband of his jeans.   
Final luxurious sweep over face and hair and there was   
Alex, tugging him out and free in the 

//All that's left?//

night air. It was shocking to find himself hard, just   
another overly powerful sensation amid a glut of same. A   
small, dim effort and he could feel the slow pulse of 

//human?//

need differentiate itself from the prickle of his own body   
hair, the sharp tug of something undefinable on his every   
cell.

"Fuck later."

No preliminaries, Alex took him deep, groaning once around   
his length. A vision from his dreams; the hum made his   
knees tremble. Mulder braced himself on the iron-hard   
shoulders and thrust helplessly, grazing against a fang.   
Slow heartbeat to realize what would come next, another to   
feel the pain travel strangely, powerfully along his entire   
body and then Alex increased the force of the suction.   
Mulder heard himself sob, throw back his head and howl into   
the indigo and there had never, never been anything like   
this... 

When he could, when there was a release from the light   
behind and beyond his vision, he looked down. Alex was   
cleaning him with that cat-rasp tongue lovingly,   
thoroughly. Mulder ran a lightly trembling thumb along the   
corner of the younger man's mouth. Thick lashes fluttered,   
dipped and it was dry...

//Don't think...//

Moments of dazed bewilderment, inchoate fear too muted by   
everything else to do anything beyond silence the older   
man. Alex finally stood, pulled Mulder a little by the   
forearm to get him to step from the jeans puddled around   
his ankles. 

Virginia lakeshore mud, oozing shamelessly between his   
toes. Alex walked ahead, disappearing step by inexorable   
step into the water, muscles rippling, a statue in motion,   
right down to the mutilation of time. Deeper and deeper,   
dissonance to see the hard, trim waist disappearing in   
moonlight-black water when only his calves were being   
caressed. 

"Remember, Mulder, we don't need to breathe."

And then the younger man was gone with only a brief ripple   
to mark his passage and Mulder was following. A twinge at   
suppressing the reflex to breathe deep and he was under,   
the murk no real obstacle to his vision. Flash of white and   
down and down, nearly losing himself in the curious paradox   
of sensation. The pressure of increasing depth pushing hard   
against him, familiar but muted, changed by his new form.   
The water was a caress, warming, and the power was   
thrilling.

There was a slab of something... perhaps a wall stolen by   
some vicious storm. It was grey, pale green fronds of some   
unnameable plant skating along its edges. Mulder watched   
Alex wrap a few around his ankles, felt his heart beat once   
twice 

//almost normal...//

before slowing again. Alex looked up at him and smiled   
gently, beckoning.

Bemused, horny, frightened and then he was tied close to   
the younger man, who had relaxed his body, closed his eyes.   
Alex swayed with the current, beautiful and still, every   
boneless shift an invitation. Come with me, don't fight,   
We.... Mulder felt himself grow sleepy, let his arms relax   
and float up and up, hands straining against the tether of   
flesh, closed his eyes and let go.

It was almost sleep and it was almost sex, and it was   
nothing of himself. A dead thing swaying in a moment's   
perfection, never to decay. Perhaps they would always be   
there, reaching for moonlight, a mockery of ambition. 

Time and time and a hand on his arm. Alex was smiling   
again, tugging. The fish and the dust were lovely   
irrelevancies and Mulder could be slow about this, easy and   
calm, letting the water push him into the kiss at its own   
pace. Gentle and sealed and he could hear...

//Forever love you forever forever want touch feel this   
joy--

//Alex?//

... something in his soul, a bright truth lighting,   
starkly, all the things he'd left behind. He pushed it   
down, but it would always be there, now.

Mulder pulled away, but couldn't quite remove his hand from   
the smooth cheek. Alex leaned into the touch for a moment   
before turning to flick his tongue once along the palm. It   
was time to surface.


	4. The Idea of Forever

Alex eyed the hibachi doubtfully.

"You invited them to a barbecue?"

Mulder looked up at his companion of the past month,   
grinned with what Alex assumed was simple happiness. It was   
hard to say, really. It's not as though he'd ever seen a   
smile like that when they'd been partners, and these   
days...

"And you might want to tone down the smile for our guests,   
Mulder."

Lips folded slowly over sharp white teeth. It was clear   
that the older man hadn't gained complete confidence in his   
ability to avoid the fangs. Of course, as near as Alex   
could tell it never got precisely *easy,* but then he'd   
grown accustomed to healing with relative ease. 

"You don't like my smile?"

Alex walked over to the edge of the roof and arranged   
himself comfortably, straddling the ledge. Seven p.m. and   
the sun was just barely down. He felt an itch, but knew it   
was as much psychological as anything else. A denimed leg   
dangled freely; a sudden gust, redolent of cherry blossoms   
and car exhaust, prickled at his scalp. It was really quite   
safe, though sometimes he thought it was a shame about the   
hair. 

"Well?"

Turning in response to the gentle reminder, Alex saw Mulder   
balanced against one of the card tables they'd acquired for   
the evening. A sprawl more properly suited to a wall, or at   
least to something that wouldn't shatter with one strong   
blow. An optical illusion, of course. Mulder had to be   
supporting himself on that one heel.... Alex lost himself   
in admiration of the stillness of the lanky form for an   
endless moment before answering the amused quirk of the   
chestnut eyebrow.

"I love your smile... the way the streetlights gleam, the   
way your eyes crinkle just a bit with that predatory   
amusement, the way the fangs dig in just a little..."

Mulder snorted and flowed to his feet more fully before   
crossing the short distance between them. A chill and silky   
finger ran over Alex's temple, but he ignored it to watch   
the eyes. As usual the precise color was just beyond his   
ken, but sometimes they went gold.... The finger drifted   
down his cheek and without warning Alex snapped at it.

A late jerk from the older man, a tiny hiss as skin broke   
and tore in Alex's mouth. 

"Most people get past the rooting impulse by age three...."

Alex savored the thrum, the animal burn, catching the spare   
droplets and plunging for the wound... there... yes and the   
taste of the new flesh just enough time to...

"Alex..."

The wound was closing rapidly, trapping the tip of his   
tongue within Mulder's finger. An instant to thrill at the   
obscene intimacy before pulling his tongue out entirely.   
One last slow swipe before allowing the abused digit to   
slip free of its prison. Alex again relaxed against the   
pillar and watched Mulder examining his now perfectly   
pristine finger. The older man's focus was complete.

"Mulder."

"Hmm...?"

"You're still too slow. I shouldn't have been able to catch   
you

//that easily//

like that. You're still thinking too much. Not following   
your instincts."

"Is it always lessons with you, Alex?"

"Some Rules must be learned.... We no longer live in the   
world where the only thing of value was that glorious brain   
of yours. You have instincts, drives, whatever.... Old in   
ways we can't understand. We have the power to use them--"

"And if I'm... driven... by nothing more nor less than the   
need to feel you inside me? Wherever and with whatever you   
choose to penetrate me?"

"Then I'm a very lucky man, indeed, to have a lover who   
owns the entire racial memory of the first and last tribe   
of suicidal masochists." 

The gleeful abandon with which Mulder tossed back his head   
to laugh gave Alex mixed feelings. On the one hand it was   
reassurance, all the doubts and hesitations he'd had about   
joining Mulder to him proved meaningless.... But it also   
made him afraid. He knew that the Others wouldn't have   
approved this choice at all... that Mulder was in no   
condition to be alone in this world, in this state.

//He needs me.//

"But about the barbecue, Mulder?"

"What about it?"

//Deliberately obtuse, or did I do... something to that   
brain?//

"Mulder, why are you throwing a barbecue?"

"I thought letters would be too impersonal."

"I see. So you invited Skinner and Scully over here for a   
little chat over flaming meat?"

"*You* heard the answering machine. Neither one of them is   
taking my resignation all that well."

"No, I do see what you're saying, Mulder; it's just that   
I've got a few... concerns."

"Like what?"

"What did I tell you about fire?"

"Smoke is freedom, flame is mercy?"

The terror was instantaneous, unmanning. "Don't even jo--"

"I know, I know.... *I* wasn't planning to do the cooking,   
Alex. Haven't you always pictured Walt as a Tyrant of the   
Tongs?"

"Walt?"

"Dab of barbecue sauce on his chin, kiss-the-cook apron,   
manly scent of mesquite--"

Alex was on his feet and in the older man's space in an   
eyeblink, searching the bland face. Challenge and humor and   
more than a little just-plain-mean. 

"Mulder... don't tempt to me to violence."

"And when did you ever need me for that?"

Alex had to grin at that, and the look in the other man's   
eyes told him that the lesson about smiles, at least, had   
been learned. He let his hand drift through soft hair,   
tugging gently now and again. Mulder took the hint, and let   
his head loll to the side, eyes drooping half-shut so that   
only the glitter was visible. Alex rested his lips against   
the often-plundered neck and nuzzled, walking the fingers   
of his hand down and down the t-shirted chest.

Cool and hard and all his.... Alex lapped at the marble   
neck, musing that the taste would go unnoticed by any not   
of his kind... no sweat to salt his tongue, the musk far   
too subtle to make mere humans ache this way...

It was a good to have a love of dead things. A tiny sip was   
impossible to resist and he indulged, plunging within the   
sluggishly pulsing vein as he ran his hand over the   
hardness below. It was always the same, this moment... the   
ownership, the need... he'd denied himself for as long as   
he could but in the end they'd wound up just like this,   
wanting everything and taking it. The voice when it came   
was breathless and hoarse... he had drifted again.

"You keep this up and our guests may not survive the   
evening, Alex."

He pulled back with a low chuckle. "You were planning to   
let them live?"

"Alex."

"All right, all right.... I was... kidding."

"Of course you were. No deaths tonight. At least not   
*here*...."

"Oh, like it would be the first time. This building has   
seen plenty of carnage."

A hand gripped his jaw hard, and Alex smiled inside. Of   
course it wasn't spectacularly healthy to appreciate the   
almost-pain, but the blithe

//if not precisely well-adjusted//

Mulder of moments ago was distressing. It had all been too   
quick, the adjustment to their new life. Together. It   
wasn't a comfortable feeling, not yet. Especially with the   
odd way Mulder behaved most of the time.... This was   
better. Comforting and familiar.

"Not tonight, Alex. Not them."

But the voice was still far too gentle. Never in his   
wildest imaginings had there been this level of care from   
the older man. Oh, he'd always known that he would have   
him... there was even a Plan. But it was supposed to have   
been on *his* terms. 

//Idiot. You're bitching about having everything you   
want.//

Alex nuzzled into the palm, pulled his lips back just a   
little farther than was necessary for speech.

"I thought we went over the dangers of your getting too   
close to my mouth?"

The grip tightened and *there* was the gold... wild and   
glorious and he thought of the wolves that ran and burst   
through the snowdrifts all hunger and joy and oh yeah this   
is what I want...

... and he sucked in a gasp.

"OK, OK... Anything you want, Mulder. Besides, I'm not all   
that hungry."

The older man relaxed then, turned his grip to a light   
stroke along smooth, smooth cheeks and smirked a little. "I   
should hope not. We put a dent in Washington's gang pop--"

"Urban *youth* groups. Get it straight."

Mulder pushed at him in playful exasperation, went back to   
arranging the spices and tools. "In any case, next time   
*you* put on the dress and play victim."

Alex couldn't quite stifle the laugh, and the mock-scowl he   
received in response from the other man was shockingly,   
tearingly endearing. It stilled the laughter, but could do   
nothing to hold back the taunt. "Mul-derrrr... you *know*   
my thighs just don't measure up in a miniskirt. While   
*yours*--"

"What about my thighs?"

"Those lithe, delicate stems..."

"Oh, you sonofa..." 

The pounce sent him sprawling. As the maligned thighs   
pinned his hips, he saw the table with the meat on it   
tremble perilously close to disaster. Mulder had jarred it,   
if only a little. He really was getting better at this, and   
Alex was tempted to show him *just* how proud he was but   
the meat reminded him of his other concern.

"Mulder--"

"Submit, knave!"

"Knave? What the-- never mind. There's another problem."

Mulder sighed, rolled off, and settled himself on his back   
next to the other man. Alex couldn't help but savor the   
small moment of closeness, wondered what it would've been   
like to share heat...

"What *is* it, Alex?"

"What are you going to tell them when they ask why we're   
not eating?"

"What do you mean not eating.... That's *sirloin*!"

Alex blinked. Wasn't entirely sure whether to laugh or cry,   
settled for licking his lips and praying

//No, sometimes I *do* think there's a God, Alexei. Perhaps   
even many. They just enjoy a good laugh as much as the rest   
of us...//

for patience. "Mulder... when's the last time you ate   
something? Anything." He waited a moment for it to sink in   
before turning on his side and resting his hand on the   
older man's chest. 

"I just... I just thought we didn't... have to. No, I   
didn't. I didn't think." The tone was a marvel of dreamy   
bitterness.

"Hey... c'mon, Mulder. I *have* been keeping you busy."

Nothing but silence from the other man, and Alex cursed   
himself for bringing down the mood, wondered what he was   
thinking of.

"Are you going to miss the dim sum *that* much?"

Mulder snorted and ran a hand through his hair before   
dislodging Alex's hand with absentminded affection and   
sitting up. 

"Questionable epicurean tendencies aside, the idea of...   
forever..."

//You wanted this... fucking *stalked* me-- down keep it   
down//

Alex knelt up and bent to the other man's ear. "Yes,   
forever, Mulder. Think of what we *do* have... what we'll   
always have."

Pale, hard flesh brushed against his face. He knew how to   
make it give...

"Always, Alex?" Humor, hunger, and that purr of low grade   
arousal, making him *want*.

"Always."

He kissed Mulder then, a pleasure often forgotten in the   
frenzy of need. Alex felt the older man open to him and   
plunged inside. Oh, he could kiss Mulder for days, lose   
himself in the firmness of those lips, that cool, rough   
tongue, the threat...

//Oh, Christ.//

... deep into that bit of flesh between lower lip and gum a   
flash of pain so impossibly intense he couldn't even cry   
out. Pinned he was 

//Stake through the heart? Inconvenient as all hell. Try to   
avoid it.//

stuck right there and this was new, vicious and   
irresistible and jesus he can't possibly be getting much   
and then they went deep and he was sucking hard eyes closed   
can't you look at me when you're doing this but then they   
opened and it was dark black in moonlight and hands on his   
waist and it only hurt more when he pulled out slow and the   
lessons we learn... Iron in his mouth and something like   
fire, something like love.

Mulder was panting against his mouth, aborted nuzzles and   
Alex knew he wanted more.

//Everything... you can have everything....//

As he was moving to pull them both back down there came the   
sound of car doors slamming, voices too familiar to be   
shunted to the simple drone of the city night. The guests   
had arrived. A minute stiffening of the body against his   
told Alex that Mulder had heard them, too.

"They don't know I'm going to be here, do they?" "Would you   
like to explain this, Age-- Mulder?"

Alex had settled himself back on the ledge after the   
obligatory disarming process. He was reasonably sure he   
hadn't done anything particularly supernatural. It bothered   
him to have no idea what the older man's plans were, 

//if he has any...//

but he would willingly pretend to be human until Mulder   
said otherwise. He smirked at Scully, who looked more than   
willing to push him off the roof. Skinner was apparently   
ignoring him. Mulder looked... serene. 

"Just Mulder's fine, Walter. Can I call you Walter?"

Alex didn't even try to suppress his grin; this was shaping   
up to be a truly interesting evening. The A.D. was visibly   
struggling to retain a semblance of calm. "Mul--"

"Why did you resign? What the *hell* are you doing with   
Krycek? Where have you been? Do you know how long I've been   
trying to reach you?" Scully cut herself off abruptly,   
seemed to be trying to glare at both Alex and Mulder at the   
same time.

//And why a barbecue?//

Alex was trying very, very hard to giggle silently until he   
saw the look in Mulder's eyes. Hunted. He felt the muscles   
in his jaw loosen as the smile behind his face fell off. 

//Dammit. She always could do this....//

"That *is* what he invited you both here to discuss.   
Patience, Scully." Alex caught the A.D.'s glare, the   
slight tension of a pulled spring, with a small thrill of   
excitement. This could get ugly. 

//One could only hope...//

She whirled to face him.

//That's right, focus on me.//

"I wasn't talking to you--"

"Scully, please! Let's... let's try to stay calm, all   
right? There's an explanation for this. All of it."

Skinner broke in. "You're asking a lot, Mulder. You   
disappear without a trace, not that that's anything new   
for you, invite us over here for a *barbecue*..."

//And you don't even have the fucking coals going, dammit,   
Mulder!

//C'mon, Fox, look at me... recognize the basic   
absurdity...//

"... Krycek here... Mulder, just tell us what's going on."

Scully was beginning to slip toward the table with the   
tools on it. Alex sunk a knife just in front of her feet.   
"I seem to recall saying something about patience..."

"And give me *one* good reason not to blow this SOB's head   
off." Scully was making a point of ignoring the blade at   
her feet; the rage was clearly as cool as she could make   
it.

Alex said nothing, merely made a show of relaxing against   
the ledge again. 

//This is your cue, Mulder...//

"You want a reason, Scully? How about the fact that you're   
no longer armed? Look, all I want to do is... explain   
what's going on. Please. Take a seat."

The giggles were back again, and when Alex caught the   
stricken look on Scully's face he nearly fell off the roof   
constraining himself.

Mulder had arranged the chairs in a rough square around   
what was supposed to be the dining table. He took a seat   
expectantly, and Alex joined him, after prudently removing   
anything resembling a weapon. They settled down to stare   
at the guests, who were currently eyeing the rickety   
foldout chairs with an air suggestive of everything from   
rage to bemusement. Skinner and Scully finally sat, and   
Mulder took that as his cue to produce a few chilled beers   
from the cooler. Alex beat down the urge to remind him   
that they didn't drink, either, and hoped for the best.

"Are you both ready to listen?"

Curt nods. Alex wondered about the tensile strength of the   
agents' jaws, idly turned over the idea of making them   
vampires, snorted as quietly as he could. Mulder scowled   
at him again, which sent him off into an internal debate   
as to whether or not to tell him, ever, how damned   
adorable that made him look. A rumble announced Skinner's   
impatience. How long had they been staring? A glance at   
Scully suggested too long. 

"All right. I'll answer your questions as best I can. I   
resigned because I can no longer fulfill my duties as an   
FBI agent. This is the first time I've been back here in   
several weeks, and I'm sorry that I haven't been in touch.   
It... it wasn't possible. I've been underground--"

"Learning to live with the rats?"

Mulder raised a hand, a gesture whose awkwardness made Alex   
bristle, and, seemingly, whose very existence made Scully   
angrier. He supposed he could understand... this had to be   
sudden. He brushed his hand along Mulder's flank   
surreptitiously, squeezed.

"Alex Krycek has information, resources, and abilities--"

"Why this, why now, Mulder?"

"Are you insane? He killed your father, betrayed you at   
every turn--"

"I never thought of you as a quitter."

Alex watched Mulder closely; these people had been his   
anchors, were asking perfectly logical questions, really.   
The high forehead was creasing, long fingers clutching the   
edge of the table. It occurred to Alex that he wouldn't   
mind hearing the answers himself.

"I don't quit, Skinner. But the fight... my life...   
pointless. Running in circles, jumping through hoops. Pick   
your cliche. Both of you know exactly what I mean. I'm   
tired of it. And now... now it's too late to go back. There   
are other ways."

"What's he done to you?"

"I don't like the sound of that 'too late;' you can come   
back. There are people you can talk to."

Mulder put his head in his hands, his body shaking. Scully   
chose then to make her own gesture of peace, some nod to   
friendship.

"Mulder, whatever it is... please, let us help you."

The shaking got worse, and Alex knew a moment of confusion.   
A flood of well-being tempered with bitterness, regret and   
desire...

//In a way, you will always be a part of us, Alexei.//

He didn't know if he would ever grow accustomed to the   
intermittent, unpredictable waves of *Mulder* that rocked   
him. He tried to push himself across the barrier, to share   
the simple joy he could take in knowing that it would be   
forever. It wasn't an obsession with the dark, not a

//sickness//

flaw in his soul... he couldn't help but see the potential,   
even if he didn't quite understand it all yet himself. But   
the silence was growing thick, and the wall was still   
there.

"Mulder--" Alex saw Skinner move to rise, but his focus was   
divided. Mulder was pulling at him, somehow, and he   
couldn't leave him, even if it was only a touch to his   
emotions, even though the older man wouldn't look at him.   
Without warning, Mulder threw his head back and laughed. A   
rich burble of sound that held nothing of their new lives,   
nothing of anything but the man himself. But it was loud.   
And it was strange. 

Their guests were confused, growing angry again, it was   
clear.

"Dammit, what *is* this?"

And then Mulder faced them, brushed an absent, welcome hand   
along Alex's shoulders, and smiled. Scully blinked, shook   
her head slightly. The move Walter had been making to stand   
ended with a shocked grunt as he settled back hard in his   
chair.

"You see now, don't you?"

"No..."

"Of course you don't, Scully. Skinner? Walter. I know you   
do." Mulder flowed to his feet; Alex followed, noting the   
grip his lover took on the A.D.'s forearm with acceptance,   
though he couldn't help but glare at his former supervisor   
over Mulder's shoulder.

"How?" The voice was far, far too old, and Alex could sense   
Mulder gentling his grin at last. 

"Does it matter?" He stood straight and made one last   
effort to reach for Scully. She was looking through him,   
and flinched from his touch. Mulder sighed, and Alex rested   
his hand at the base of the older man's spine. "It's over.   
I... I made my choice. Good-bye."

With that, he turned to face Alex and it was all the   
younger man could do not to confirm the

//victory//

truth for the agents in the most graphic way possible, but   
he held himself to grasping a slack hand before pulling   
them off the roof, and away.

******

Another anonymous apartment, one of many Alex had   
maintained in the past. Held now not for nostalgia, but in   
the hopes of luring old associates out of the woodwork. 

//Here I am, here I am...//

Mulder sat on the floor before the vaguely welcoming beige   
couch, apparently examining the pile of the carpet. Alex   
knelt beside him, cupped the older man's face and raised   
it.

"How are you?"

No answer for a long while, as Mulder slowly pulled himself   
from wherever he had gone before finally meeting Alex's   
eyes.

"I'm really not sure, Alex.... It wasn't supposed to be   
that way."

"Well... we did leave them the steaks. The evening might   
not be a complete loss..."

Briefly incredulous quirk of eyebrows; a quiet chuckle that   
felt like home. Alex bent to kiss the cool cheek. A   
promise, a plea. When long, gentle fingers cupped his head   
and made their will known he surrendered to them gladly.   
And silently decided never to question the price of his   
desires. 

End.


	5. And no other.

//We could we could...

//We could dance all night--//

Mulder was adrift in the darkness, sprawled along the   
poorly soundproofed back wall of the theater, chafing   
himself against the choreographed groans of the movie,   
against the scent of desperation and thick, thick blood.   
Alex was already in motion. Prowling the aisles...

//My killer.//

It was hard not to laugh; the slow wave of turned heads   
following his lover's progress was almost farcical. Alex   
was beautiful in the strobic flash of creamy thighs,   
moderately terrifying cocks; beautiful always. The familiar   
form was symmetrical again--he always wore the prosthesis   
for these outings. The wicked flash of the hook, now...   
That was new.

******

Thump of bass outside and below their apartment.   
Unseasonably warm this Virginia

//I don't want to stay here.

//*They* are here. Some of them. Give it a few more   
weeks...//

fall and the children were out and about. The music snapped   
his eyes open, dragged him out of rest, into the vague pain   
of just- past-sunset, into hunger. Alex was asleep, though   
the clear, pale forehead was creased in incipient   
irritation. There was still a subtle flush to his body, a   
memory of warmth. He had fed last night. 

It was all right to pet the fine flank, let his fingers   
wander in search of the artery. Gradually, the body gained   
a different sort of stillness as Alex awoke. Subtle shift   
and the lean form was a little closer, the legs spread a   
little wider, and he could watch and wait and there was the   
pulse he was waiting for, a shade of excitement.

Older than reason, younger than self and so so good, even   
before he dove in, just to know he could, knowing Alex   
would let him take it all...

//You give to make me crave you, I take to do the same.//

Today, though, he was only allowed a few moments to feed   
before the hand buried itself in his hair, tugged him   
closer to where Alex wanted him. Mulder pulled out at his   
own pace, allowed a thin trail of blood to mark his   
progress up the younger man's body. 

"So wasteful, beloved..."

Languid smile brushed pale cheek, smudging, daubing. "You   
have so much, Alex."

Alex scowled dramatically, rolled out from under the covers   
to sit on the edge of the bed, casually dislodging Mulder. 

"I didn't plan on feeding again tonight."

//No one interesting left to kill?//

It was just a game, but Mulder was abruptly irritable. Six   
months of this strange model of domesticity, of being told   
what he could and could not do...

Not surprisingly, Mulder could see Alex's shoulders   
stiffen, despite the fact he hadn't said a word. He was   
growing accustomed to the younger man's occasional bouts of   
empathy... though they weren't any less irritating because   
of that familiarity. 

"We haven't hunted together for weeks, Mulder..." There was   
a hint of a plea in the soft words.

"We don't care for the same grounds."

Alex let himself fall back on the rumpled bed and the older   
man couldn't help but take in the spare and subtle curves   
of his form, reach out to dabble in the drying blood. 

//Instinct...?//

Small, meaningless patterns on flesh that didn't quite jump   
under the brush of his fingertips.... He had taken too   
much. Mulder lapped his fingers clean before gazing at the   
calmly wicked face.

"Come out with me tonight."

"Where, Alex?"

And the other man was up and moving, that snakelike strike   
of a kiss that never failed to make him gasp, never failed   
to leave one or both of them wounded again, if only   
briefly. 

"New grounds..."

******

Mulder watched the younger man pause, considering, between   
two of the middle rows. Voices were raised a little too   
loudly for this game, hope and want, shocked arousal from   
the chosen one. Mulder drifted closer, knowing he was only   
a flicker among shadows, settled in on the other side of

"Meet Tim, Mulder."

//Is this the way it has to be, tonight?//

"H-hey... you two know each other? That's cool. That's   
cool."

Tim turned away from Alex to face him, smile a little   
nervously.

"So, uh... did you guys want a threesome? Want me to suck   
you..."

The words trailed off as Alex trailed the ice-cold hook   
along the man's neck. It made him jerk, twist interestingly   
and gasp. Shift of the orgiasts onscreen and there was a   
wash of false silver across Tim's hair. Freshly washed--  
obviously not a regular. Alex had worked his hand over to   
cup the bulge in the man's pants, slipped him out and began   
to stroke gently. Mulder watched, fascinated, as sweat   
broke out over the thin upper lip. The hook was still   
against Tim's nape. 

"Unnh..."

Mulder dove in and lapped away the sweat... just as thin   
and salty as any junk food.

"I don't know about this kinky s-stuff."

Whiskey chuckle from Alex and Mulder pulled away, ran a   
thumb over the trembling mouth. Alex leaned in, whispered   
in Tim's ear.

"I know."

Slash across the carotid and Mulder was there and ready,   
Alex catching the breathy scream with a kiss as he   
continued to stroke with brutal efficiency. Tim was a glyph   
of tortured passion, arching into Alex's hand even as his   
struggles to get away from Mulder weakened.

Mulder fought the urge to settle in, knew they were already   
drawing too much attention. No casual observer could call   
this quick and dirty, no careful one call it anything but   
what it was. He wanted to finish it quickly, blunt the   
hunger for another few days, get back home to the quiet.   
Alex, however, had other ideas. 

Just as the heartbeat began slowing, far, far too soon, his   
prize was ripped away. Sickening crack hidden by the snap   
of black leather on the screen, ragdoll slumped in the   
seat. This wasn't the way it went.

"What... what ever happened to "discretion above all   
things," Alex?" The frustration in his voice was maddening. 

"Good news, Mulder. We're leaving."

Flash of guilt, remembrance made the older man's voice   
hoarse. "I'm not done, yet... I have--"

"Conspiracies to uncover, former employers of mine to kill,   
I know..."

//Am I a joke to you?

//Am I just kidding myself?// "... done *here*. I got   
word just before I came in this morning: Better pickings to   
the North. You were already asleep." Affectionate slide of   
hook over his cheek. Harder than the hand, true, but still   
a little warmer. Mulder leaned into the touch on a whim to   
make the younger man smile, perhaps lose some of that smug   
control. When it came again, the voice was a little more   
needful, a little easier to take. "They're on the run,   
Mulder. We've been... successful."

"And this?"

Alex began to lean close, glared at the obstacle irritably   
for a moment before throwing it to the floor. Lapping   
kisses to remove all trace of Tim from the older man's   
face, an expansive gesture at the rest of the audience.   
"This.... This is your farewell party."

******

"Who do you want, Mulder?" The voice was at his ear, and it   
hurt. Everything hurt. He had awoken to darkness broken   
only by the pale flesh driving above him, groin to groin;   
his entire body was aflame.

//My new life?//

Rough tongue in his ear and he hadn't been this sensitive   
since middle school, couldn't stop arching up to meet the   
thrusts of his new lover. 

"Tell me who.... Anyone you want."

"What... What do you mean?" Rock hard and pulling   
pulling... he felt burnt, cut open and husked. The only   
blood in his body was pooled in his genitals and nipples,   
the rest was cold and aching for...

//Oh, Jesus...//

Alex paused then, positioned himself to look into the older   
man's eyes, a little humor, a little question, hunger to   
match his own. 

"I don't know, Alex..."

//Don't make me choose.//

"I have some ideas." Gentle smile. Impossible to darken it   
further than some benign roguishness. "Tonight we'll follow   
my lead, all right?"

He could smell the younger man. Nothing like the intriguing   
musk that night in the cell

//And what if we'd taken it further, then?//

but still lovely. He could almost tell himself his reaction   
was solely due to the new drives ruling his body, even   
allowing himself a moment to drift, wondering how long it   
would take his baser nature to be subsumed *this* time....   
But then the scent increased. Alex had slashed his own   
chest, was slathering his fingers in the wound. There was a   
blink of time, a moment of feeling so pure as to be   
undefinable. Rage and lust, melted and tempered, merged and   
he was on the younger man, stabbing at the slash with his   
tongue, doing his best to gnaw it wider with Alex's silent   
approval.

Everything he was physically was trying to tell him just   
how right this was, from the involuntary curl and spike of   
his tongue, to the thighs that widened to take Alex's slick   
fingers. 

"Jesus, you have no idea how long I've wanted this..."

Some complicated spin, the distinct impression that this   
would've been painful once, and he was straddling the   
younger man. The move had ripped him away from the wound,   
which was closing itself rapidly without his attentions.   
Mulder nearly mewled.

"Shh, shh, this'll make it better. Focus on this,   
Mulder..."

Twist of clever fingers inside and it was almost ridiculous   
that something so

//human//

simple could still affect him this way. He felt himself   
arching, bucking shamelessly and there was almost a drive   
to let it all

//merge//

flow through him and for just a moment he was snapped back   
into the *need*, every cell howling for blood and yes he   
could think that now but Alex was adding another finger and   
it was all one and all right, just fine to be thirst, to   
let your body make all the demands necessary. 

Alex was bright, gleaming, eyes flickering ceaselessly over   
his body, its shifts and rolls. Mulder let his own gaze   
fall pointedly to Alex's cock.

"You want this?"

Mulder tore his own wrist open. Alex hissed, thrust into   
the stream. "No more teases." The older man felt another   
wave of want hit him, confusing in its difference and   
intensity, but then Alex was removing his hand.... Briefly,   
terrifyingly, Mulder felt his hand ache to dart for the   
flexing wrist, grasp and hold it right there. Forever. Time   
shuddered for Mulder, blink and he was bereft, gasp and he   
was guiding himself to Alex's cock. Kiss of slick but   
tacking flesh, too cool but needed, slow rock to be joined.

"Alex--"

"Do it, I want to watch you--"

Mulder rode him at his own pace, surrounded by iron and   
sharp little cries, filthy with himself and his lover.   
There was no redemption in this, just the useless coda to a   
drama that had already ended. Irresistible self-indulgence   
and Mulder wanted, desperately, to weep for it but there   
was a slick-sticky fist on his cock, and a husky voice   
calling his name and there was nothing to do but surrender,   
nothing to be but pleasured.

******

Mulder stared at Alex for a long moment, helpless to avoid   
seeing *precisely* how they'd gotten here... just what he'd   
allowed himself to become. The sex had only left him   
hungrier, malleable. Alex had only to point at the first   
one, whisper vaguely of crimes,

//I would've killed anyone at that point...//

and he had attacked. 

//This is all I have, now.//

He watched the frown gather itself behind the too-observant   
olive eyes. Waited for the pain. 

//I will indulge myself in everything, Alex. Everything.//

"If this is my party..."

"Yes?"

//So eager...//

"I want to choose my own favors." He smiled then, lush and   
wicked, and Alex's reaction was sweetly, predictably   
immediate.

"Anything you want, Mulder."


	6. Evil Eye

//You're kidding yourself, Alexei.

//And aren't I allowed? At this point?//

Alex propped himself against the headboard of their bed,   
watching Mulder at the mirror, and wrinkling his nose a bit   
at the smell of paint that lingered in the new house. It   
had been months since the job was done, but...

"Mulder, where did we stash the box with all the candles?"

"Anyone ever punish you for your obsession with   
atmosphere?" The jibe came quickly -- and Mulder never   
turned from the mirror -- but there was humor in the flat   
tones.

"Not nearly often enough... but where--"

"Basement maybe, next to the coffins?"

Alex snorted, flowed off the bed. His lover in a playful   
mood was something to be taken advantage of, these days.   
"Mulder, Mulder... you *know* that's the first place the   
angry villagers look." He sidled up behind the other man,   
slid his arm around the pale, trim waist. "The coffins are   
in the shed."

"We have a shed?"

The younger man chuckled into the hollow between neck and   
shoulder, then nestled himself a little closer, not   
coincidentally getting a better view at the source of the   
older man's fascination. Mulder was holding out an arm,   
prodding the inside of his elbow with three fingers.

"What is it?"

"The veins, Alex..."

The younger man ran his hand through the sparse hair on   
Mulder's abdomen, made fine by the change, each curve a   
scimitar of silk. 

//Never get tired of this, of you...//

"What about the veins?" A nuzzle of muted want and the   
older man leaned into the touch, but never stopped   
prodding. Alex sighed and abandoned the much beloved belly   
for the hard, blue ropes just under the deceptively   
translucent flesh. 

"Have you noticed how rigid they get when we go without...   
feeding for a while?"

"Yes..." 

"What would happen if we just... stopped?"

Alex slipped off the other man, nudged him a bit to turn   
him away from the mirror. A hand on the shoulder turned   
into a small, mindless caress of thumb to throat. 

"Mulder."

It was almost morbid to watch now; the flat pads of fingers   
stroking and pinching along the forearm constantly,   
constantly, only the barest blush to mark abraded skin, but   
even that much...

"Mulder."

The older man abruptly raised his head to face him, not   
bothering to flip back the dark and mildly dusty fall of   
hair. Nothing at all in those eyes but vaguely dazed   
humor.... Alex supposed it could be worse.

"Do you know, Alex? What would happen?" No sense of   
urgency in the familiar voice, not much of anything,   
really.

Alex moved a little closer, obliterating the rather   
disturbing lack of focus by limiting his vision to the dry   
and slightly parted lips. "No, I don't. I haven't allowed   
myself to go hungry for very long since Hong Kong..." Such   
an expressive mouth... twisted this time by a slight frown.   
It was, perhaps, cruel to remind Mulder of Before. "But I   
suppose that should we actually *try* to starve   
ourselves..."

//How long since you've hunted, beloved?//

"They might harden to the point of... of... Hell, Mulder, I   
have no fucking clue. Don't make me lie to you."

Mulder chuckled a bit and nuzzled the younger man back up   
to look in his eyes. Clearer now. "No Rule for this?"

"A certain measure of common sense tends to be expected."   
Alex waited for the inevitable bit of self-deprecation to   
begin spilling out of the older man's mouth, used the   
opportunity to steal a kiss. Even now, Mulder was sometimes   
clumsy, hesitant with his caresses. He didn't care to   
wonder why, often, just took the opportunity to kiss him   
more insistently, long and long past the time when oxygen   
would have been a concern. Given time, it was always   
perfect.

One night Alex had determined to see how long they could   
kiss -- just kiss -- before Mulder rebelled. They had been   
living in D.C. at the time and the sky was flush with the   
sunset... An expanse of exertion at the passing of another   
day. Alex liked to start early, and Mulder had agreed to   
hunt with him. Too-crowded alleyways and the occasional   
flash of true obscenity in the midst of all the   
banalities. Tempting, that, but not as much as watching   
Mulder prowl.

Some nights, like that one, Mulder would just... let go, it   
seemed. Find himself black jeans and tailored leather --   
neater than Alex's own -- and settle himself at Alex's   
side. They would walk together in silence, but Alex would   
watch. The brief flare of a nostril, the slick sheen of   
want over the unclassifiable eyes. When Mulder hunted, when   
he let Alex see, there was always a moment when the older   
man would freeze. If Alex moved a little closer, if it was   
allowed, he could feel the thrum. The twitch of a helpless   
smile. Mulder only let himself revel in the hunger when he   
knew it would be satisfied.

It was an attitude Alex understood. That night it was just   
some random pickpocket, slender clever fingers making off   
with three separate wallets while they watched. The flak   
jacket had to be heavy with other people's money. A glance   
to the side. Mulder was poised and waiting. Alex took in   
the street, deserted save for a clutch of tired looking   
whores and two cars waiting at the intersection. A count of   
eight and the cars were in motion.

"Now, Mulder..."

Grey green glance, suggestion of a grin, and the pickpocket   
was against the wall, one leg flailing past Mulder, one arm   
clutching at crumbling mortar. There was a series of sharp   
clicks as the buttons on Mulder's jeans collided with the   
victim's. That was one of the benefits of letting Mulder go   
for long periods of time without hunting... watching him   
lose it for the taste of blood and a pretty boy -- those   
fine, slim hips snapping mindlessly. The boy's pelvis   
would most probably be crushed, but...

Dry stick crack and it was over, Mulder holding the boy   
upright by the slackened face and staring.... Alex slipped   
his arm around the other man, nudged Mulder to face him and   
began to lap him clean...

//Another reason to have a... partner, Alexei. No, no, not   
here... but you'll forgive me if I just take a little   
taste, yes?//

... slipping his head around to the other side when he was   
done. Mulder nuzzled into the caress, but remained focused   
on the dead boy until Alex pulled away. Brief sound of   
distress. 

"Dumpster, Mulder... come on, it'll be days before the next   
pick up. The rats'll do our job for us."

Unreadable glance and Mulder set off into the alleyway,   
just another shadow in the dimness, tossed the body into   
the dumpster. A bank shot that had the added effect of   
shutting the thing. 

"Show off."

"Another life, Alex... I coulda been a star..." Dreamily   
self- mocking smile and elaborate free throw pose. Too sexy   
for words. Alex backed him against the cool green metal and   
kissed him, deeply and endlessly, not backing off, not   
taking any more. It had lasted for hours, Mulder's arms   
around him in casual affection, Alex occasionally   
surfacing enough to wonder at the *ease* of the moment   
before slipping down again with a swipe of the tongue, a   
softly teasing nip. 

He didn't pull away until he felt the first itch of dawn on   
the back of his neck. And Mulder had smiled, lazily, and   
run a hand down the side of his face....

Alex slipped back into the present at the feel of Mulder's   
fangs beginning to dig -- just that slightest bit harder   
than was innocent --into his lip. He pulled off.

Flash of need and he ran a thumb over Mulder's mouth.   
Perfect forever, now. It was almost a shame. Alex could   
*see* the other man restraining himself from biting at his   
hand. 

"Come out with me tonight?"

Briefly unpleasant twist. "I don't feel like--"

//Of course you don't...//

"I know.... I just want to go shopping."

A snort and Mulder was nudging him up again to look in his   
eyes. He refused to be baited, though, brushing brief,   
frustrating kisses against the older man's mouth instead.   
The only way to get Mulder into something was to let it be,   
at least on some level, his own idea.

"OK, OK, I give..." Mulder knew Alex's game just as well as   
Alex played it, of course. "Why are we going shopping?"

Alex couldn't keep himself from grinning at the immediate   
capitulation, or from hissing a little when Mulder pulled   
him closer and began to burrow into his throat. 

"Why, Alex?" Muffled by his own flesh. Alex felt the lips   
pull back a bit... dangerous mood, then. Good mood. 

"We... we need new curtains." 

Mulder froze mid-nuzzle. Tickling graze of eyelashes   
against his throat as the other man indulged in a slow   
blink.

"Curtains."

"Yes. I'm thinking a nice, thick velvet set."

Another blink, even slower this time. The sensation made   
Alex squirm and by the immediate way Mulder took advantage   
of the motion with a grind of his hips he had to assume   
that was the plan.

"We really do need to talk about the atmosphere thing,   
Alex."

Alex ran his fingers through Mulder's hair, pulled him up   
and away from his throat. Not without some difficulty --   
Mulder was clearly hungry -- but the result was the same.   
Eye to eye and much too close not to move closer still. To   
step in and kiss until *just* before Mulder's hands begin   
to play with the waistband of Alex's pajama bottoms, until   
just before he forgets the plan altogether to lay himself   
out for Mulder, instead. To be the victim for tonight.

//No, no, no.//

Alex pulled off entirely save for his hand on Mulder's   
shoulder. It was both the comfort of unbroken caress and a   
necessary stop. 

"We're going to the mall, we're buying curtains, we're..."

//going to find someone for you to *eat*, dammit//

"We're coming home, and then we're having large amounts of   
sex." Alex watched Mulder's face, but if the other man had   
caught his hesitation there was no outward sign.

"I suppose we'll have to put clothes on." 

Alex nodded gravely. Mulder heaved a truly impressive sigh. 

******

"You know, we're not going to find what you like here,   
Alex."

"We're not even out of the car and you're *already* --"

"I'm just pointing out that you can't find the really   
*good* curtains at a mall. You need an upscale furniture   
store for that."

Alex paused, leaned back into the buttery caress of the   
leather seat. Tapped out something he couldn't quite   
remember on the steering wheel. Flexed experimentally -- it   
had been a while since he'd last worn the prosthetic --   
and counted to ten. 

"It was a thirty mile drive to get here."

"Yes...?"

Alex bit his lip, got rid of the blood with a vicious swipe   
of the tongue. Not before he felt Mulder shifting a bit   
toward him, though. "You couldn't point that out somewhere   
along the way?" It was an effort to keep his voice calm.

Mulder turned to face him, then, and smiled with near   
radiance. It was abruptly difficult to remember why he was   
angry. "It's been a long time since we've taken a drive..."

//It's been a long time for a lot of things... but I'll   
take that on face value.//

Alex let himself grin, reached out to stroke the   
attractively unkempt hair. 

"All right, Mulder. We won't be able to get the sort of   
atmosphere-improving window treatments--"

A snort from the passenger seat.

Alex grinned. "What, I'm not allowed to know what they're   
called?"

Dry voice. "Don't mind me, Alex, I'm just having a surreal   
moment."

Alex dove across the seat and slammed Mulder against the   
door. Hovered near the slightly parted lips for one slow   
heartbeat before catching a nipple through Mulder's t-shirt   
and pulling hard enough to make him moan. Settled back in   
his own seat, wondered briefly how much he'd be allowed to   
push, tonight. "You know what you're supposed to do when   
you have one of those, don't you?"

"Stop killing college kids with too many hallucinogens in   
their systems?"

Alex giggled. "Whose idea was it to crash that party,   
*anyway*?"

Mulder's mouth twitched and Alex got the distinct   
impression he would be blushing if he could. "Well, there   
was all that singing, and the bonfire--"

"And the pickled children, yes." Alex shut off the engine   
and stepped out of the car. Opening Mulder's door earned   
him a wry look, but he simply stepped back a little to   
allow the other man room to stand. "But I was going to   
tell you the best method to cope with a surreal moment...   
though I must say I'd think you, of all people, would know   
this already."

An eyebrow quirk and Alex got up on tiptoe to run his   
tongue over it. Felt Mulder shiver a bit.

"Tell me anyway." Low voice. Alex decided to pick up the   
first suitably dark and cheerless set he came across.

"You just sit back and enjoy it, Mulder. After all, how   
often does the outside world match your own mind?"

Mulder grabbed him by the crotch and squeezed nowhere near   
hard enough. "You may have a point, Alex." He smiled with   
shameless malevolence and released him to walk toward the   
mall entrance. 

******

They hadn't been inside for five minutes before Alex could   
feel Mulder itching to kill. The place was packed -- early   
winter evening and hundreds upon hundreds of people from   
the surrounding counties had come here directly from work.   
Their days were ending, and they smelled of light sweat and   
fatigue. Fatigue doesn't smell all that different from,   
say, world- weariness. Life weariness.

Every few seconds Mulder pulled in a long, indulgent   
breath. He was drawing stares. Alex began to wonder if he   
was like this on his own...

"... our best bet here, Alex."

Snapped back to attention and Alex realized he was staring   
just as obviously as Mulder. Though his focus was narrower.   
He smiled ruefully to himself. 

"Hmmm...?"

Mulder grinned at him. "I *said*, J.C. Penney's is probably   
our best bet here."

Alex shuddered. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm *sure*. Tsk. Too bourgeois?"

"Simple practicality, Mulder. If the curtains were to   
suddenly disintegrate at oh, say, high *noon* we'd have   
problems." 

Dark, brief chuckle from his right. "Gee, I don't know....   
you've been looking a little pale just lately..."

Alex shook his head and steered them into the department   
store. As expected it was too bright, too loud, and crowded   
besides. He could feel Mulder flexing a bit under his hand.   
This had to be getting hard. Alex restrained himself from   
teasing and moved them as quickly and unobtrusively as   
possible to the Home Furnishings department.

******

Jaime was approximately five feet, eight inches tall. Jaime   
was blonder than an Aryan Nation advertisement. Jaime had   
spent the last seventeen minutes discussing balloon   
valances, panels, tiebacks, swags, and other things that   
managed to be obscure, vaguely frightening, and terribly   
boring all at the same time. Seventeen minutes in which   
Alex had calmly and clearly pointed out they were there   
for "heavy," "dark," and "38 x 60" any number of times.   
This one would die. 

Mulder had long since perched on the cashier's table. The   
sort of pose that dared someone, anyone, to say something   
while warning people exactly what a bad idea that would be.   
As near as Alex could tell, the older man's vision had been   
fixed on the back of Jaime's neck for the past twelve   
minutes. He remembered to blink now and again, so Alex   
couldn't really fault the behavior. Especially since it   
was clearly beginning to rattle the little curtain Nazi. 

"So... so y-y-you see there are any number of options   
available to f-fit out your new h-h-home, gentlemen. You   
don't *really* want the whole thing to be so... so *dark*,   
do you?"

Alex blinked at him, shot a glance at Mulder, who   
immediately climbed to a stand just behind Jaime. And   
continued to stare at the back of his neck. "Yes. We do."

Jaime swallowed once. "We... we r-really d-don't have much   
in the sort of..." Another swallow. "S-sort of style you...   
you gentlemen seem to want." 

Mulder leaned in a little closer, brought his lips to a   
point approximately four millimeters from Jaime's ear. He   
was only a few inches taller than the salesman, but   
someone had clearly taught Mulder how to loom at some   
point. "Why don't you show us what you *do* have..." He   
reached around to pluck at the name-tag. "Jaime?"

"I-I-I think we have s-some burgundy..."

Alex winced. "How about a nice forest green?"

Mulder looked at him once before turning his attention back   
to Jaime's throat. 

"G-g-gentlemen... I'm-- ah, that is t-to say..."

"Yes?"

"I'll have to check the storeroom!" The sudden shout made   
Mulder draw back a little, eyes narrowing. Jaime slipped   
from between them immediately. "Y-y-you just wait here, OK?   
OK. I'll be b-b-back as soon as possible!"

And he was scuttling away. Mulder started to follow and   
Alex had to physically restrain him. "They'll find the   
body too quickly." 

Momentary snarl and Mulder was snatching his arm away,   
moving again to his former perch. He shook himself once,   
gripped his own arms, and rocked for a full minute before   
visibly pulling himself back under control. Mulder caught   
his eye, then, and, given their other behavior this night,   
Alex couldn't find it in himself to resist the familiar   
tug of need. Mulder opened his legs invitingly and Alex   
moved in close, resting his head on the other man's chest   
and settling in to wait. 

It would probably only take Jaime a half-hour or so to   
recover.

******

"Alex."

"Hmmm...?" There was a small but apparently quite dominant   
part of Alex's mind that was convinced he could get some   
unspecified value of *more*. All he had to do was nuzzle   
into Mulder as far as possible. To that end, he found   
himself halfway under the other man's lapel when Mulder   
woke him up. Jaime was taking a very long time. Alex shook   
it off and pulled out from under the jacket to find Mulder   
looking... merry. "What's up?"

"What would you do if you saw a crime being committed?"

"Hmmm... Depends on the crime, the criminal, the victim,   
the situation --"

"Style, originality...?"

Alex grinned. "Something like that. Why?"

"Oh, no reason."

Alex settled back against Mulder, felt a hand shape itself   
to the back of his head. And then the world exploded. 

At the very least, it seemed that way. One minute he was   
trying to decide whether he could still smell the curious   
blend of expensive coffee and clove cigarettes that marked   
the last victim he could remember Mulder taking on the   
other man. The next he was hurtling unpleasantly through   
the air -- still against Mulder -- until they were   
forcibly stopped by a wall. 

He knew this sensation. Bomb. It was smoky and hot and he   
didn't want to turn around because he could *hear* the fire   
eating away at the draperies behind him, and when he looked   
into Mulder's face -- peppered with bits of cement but   
healing -- he could see the flames dancing on the surface   
of his eyes. Mulder was smiling. 

"Fuck."

It seemed the only thing to say. He hauled Mulder up   
forcibly and tried to remember which way was *out*, moving   
quickly and purposefully because he remembered quite well   
what it was like to burn...

He remembered the old man gasping for air, lifted clear off   
the floor and struggling. He remembered the curl of his own   
lip as his fingers slipped on the crepey flesh of the old   
man's neck. He remembered the tiny sting at his side.   
Looking down to find a cigarette pressed into his torso. 

Admirable really. The old bastard -- the name he'd heard   
the most, for whatever it was worth, was Rodbell --   
couldn't have been getting much oxygen at that point. Alex   
had watched with curiosity as the butt burned through his   
thin t-shirt, wondered what his flesh would smell like. 

The flare of agony was a shock. Worse than Peskow's little   
lessons, worse than the forest. Fascination quickly turned   
to horror as actual flames began to lick and char over his   
torso. Rodbell had been tossed aside and lost. Again. By   
the time he'd sprayed himself down with the fire   
extinguisher there were parts of him... missing. He'd   
grown careless in his killings over the next several   
weeks. Always hungry, always hurting. 

It hadn't taken long for Mulder to find him. He supposed   
that everything happened for a reason, but it wasn't the   
sort of thought that was comforting at times like these. 

Mulder was giggling and coughing and Alex couldn't see a   
goddamn thing. Screams of the dead and dying. Fire   
everywhere he looked. And he knew damned well Mulder had   
seen whoever set the bomb.

"Were you trying to kill us both, Mulder?"

"C'mon, you know it takes more than that--"

"Not if we don't get out of this motherfucking *fire*!"

The smile was lurid in the dimness. And then Mulder   
disappeared into the smoke.

There was a crash off to his left that resolved itself into   
a large portion of the roof falling in, providing a   
crumbling ramp to the outside. They'd be able to get out   
if he could get Mulder back here before any more structural   
integrity was lost. The next several minutes weren't among   
the nastiest he'd ever survived, but that was only because   
of the chaos. 

There was nothing quite like being able to reach out and   
silence some dumb bitch's hysterical screams with a   
shamelessly messy bite. Even if he was seen later no one   
would question the blood. The machine was fed. The woman   
would burn. 

Alex continued through the murk, narrowly avoiding falling   
through the floor in several places, or being hit by   
falling, burning rubble in several others. He was just   
plotting out phase four of his plan to get back at Mulder   
for putting him through this when he heard a very distinct   
sort of moan.

Around a faux marble pillar with a large, widening crack   
down the center, and there was Mulder. Jerking Jaime off   
while feeding on the man. He reminded himself that getting   
his lover to hunt *had* been part of the evening's agenda,   
took a deep breath and waited for him to finish. He wished   
he trusted the pillar enough to lean casually against it.   
This was one of those moments that called for a good   
sprawl. 

Jaime's moans were quieting to a whisper of air, the   
instinctive buck of the hips slowing. Didn't look like he'd   
make it before Mulder--

And there was that crack. Alex never had figured out why   
Mulder always snapped their necks after draining them.   
Seemed rather redundant... even if it did put a certain   
finality on the whole encounter. Mulder tossed the body   
toward one of the creeping blazes -- creeping much too   
fast, really.

"Are you ready to leave, yet?"

Challenging look. "I wasn't the one who wanted a night on   
the town, Alex."

He moved close to Mulder and offered his own face for   
cleaning. Mulder immediately obliged. Slow, careless laps   
that made it to his mouth far sooner than was efficient.   
Mulder was most probably still hungry... but had developed   
other priorities. 

"We could stay.... Look down there."

Alex let his gaze follow Mulder's finger. The bomb had   
turned most of Penney's into a smoking crater. On the far   
side of it a figure -- difficult to classify beyond that --   
was scrabbling for purchase. It was clear the floor had   
very recently failed for the individual. It failed a   
little more while Alex watched and the person was flailing   
and screaming on the way down. 

"Our own little slice of Hell on earth?"

Briefly promising bite to his nape and Mulder was   
whispering in his ear.

"Like you said, Alex.... How often *does* the outside world   
match my mind?"

The incipient caress was tempting, but Alex had serious   
doubts as to whether they'd make it out of this place if   
they stayed much longer. He pulled away, turned to face the   
other man again. 

"C'mon, Mulder. I want to go home. And I want..."   
Calculated smile and Alex turned away. Did his best to   
saunter though there was the debris to be considered. He   
knew Mulder was behind him. 

******

They didn't make it back to the house until nearly four...   
the road had been a clutter of emergency vehicles and cop   
cars. The fact they made it out on their own power was   
suspicious enough, and there were at least 4 random   
checkpoints on the road back. Mulder wondered aloud where   
all the security had been beforehand, Alex just smirked. 

Even with all the windows rolled down they reeked heavily   
of smoke and blood. The latter was more than fine for Alex;   
the former made him twitch. Mulder was infuriatingly well-   
behaved in the passenger seat the entire ride home.

Alex headed straight for the bathroom, Mulder followed.   
Spun him around, slammed him against the door and kissed   
him hard. The towel rack did nothing to improve his mood.   
He pushed Mulder off and began stripping -- getting rid of   
the stench was really his number one priority. Mulder   
looked ready to pounce but turned away, instead. Turned   
the water on in the shower and tested it. Smiled over his   
shoulder at Alex before tearing at his own clothes with   
ruthless abandon. 

"Planning on joining me?" "Was there ever any doubt?"

Anger flared again. "I don't *know*, Mulder. You seemed to   
be enjoying our little field trip to the Inferno--"

"I remember, I remember. Fire is bad, fire is wrong--" 

Alex started to say something else, but Mulder moved close   
again, dropped to his knees. Bit Alex on the thigh once,   
quickly. Brief suckle made him gasp before Mulder stood   
again.

"I also remember your saying something about style and   
originality..."

"Mulder--"

"You have to admit, malls *need* bombing."

"Not while we're--"

Mulder took his mouth, then, and walked them into the   
shower. Darkness and haze, but this was steam and hot water   
and the bracing scent of the soap. Mulder washed them both   
thoroughly, while managing to keep Alex pressed against the   
wall with a series of bites and kisses. 

Some time later Alex became aware that the water was   
freezing... but Mulder was still kissing him. He thought   
about letting the other man play his own game, decided he'd   
really rather just get fucked. He reached between them and   
took hold of Mulder's cock, hard and pulsing, a glimmer of   
heat remaining despite the shower and their nature. Jaime   
probably hadn't been Mulder's only kill that night, after   
all. The thought made him smile.

"Bedroom."

All things considered, the night had been a success.


	7. Time

Just as the grave reached the mandatory minimum depth of   
three feet his trowel broke. Alex would have to cover the   
body by hand. It was a sign, he supposed. Yet more proof   
that it

//was a failure//

was time to change tactics. Alex shuddered minutely in the   
rain, not at all amused by the irony of the fact that he   
only felt its chill with the flush of the kill fresh on his   
skin. He watched incuriously as the 

//pissing//

rain cut moon bright tracks through the spatters of mud   
that had accumulated on the pale flesh of his victim while   
he dug. 

Another problem. A "warm" winter in northern Massachusetts   
meant there had been weeks of this rain, and the Rules   
forbade the collection of any of the effects of a

//happy this one had been happy to see me... even happier   
when he found out the truth...//

meal in one's chosen lair -- even if only until they dried   
to a burnable state. Mr. Francis P. Humboldt, late of   
Pittsfield, would simply have to be buried in his clothes. 

Despite having taken the precaution of severing 

//Please, Alex... call me//

Frankie's head clear from his body to hide any suspicious   
marks, it was a worrisome thing. Should the rain continue   
(as it was showing every sign of wanting to do), it was   
entirely possible that the earth would shift enough to make   
for a far too early discovery of the body. There was   
nothing for it. Alex would *have* to take the wallet, the   
earrings. He would have to

//I don't care what you do, boy, so long as you//

do what was necessary. He pulled out his machete. The thuds   
of metal on cold meat, the tink tink of wood on bone and   
enamel... nonsensical sounds that did little, really, to   
break up the numbing monotony of watery patters. It was   
all very depressing, and he knew there would be little   
comfort at home. 

******

The cabin was just outside of Bennington, all weather-  
proofed decks and artfully landscaped grounds. All but   
useless and disturbingly barren this time of year, of   
course, and the Realtor had seemed more shocked that the   
two men wanted to rent the place than he had at their   
stubborn refusal to set an appointment before 6 p.m. In the   
end, however, the papers had been signed and the house was   
theirs for six months. Alex stood on the side deck for   
several moments in a futile attempt to

//avoid the inevitable//

allow Mother Nature to wash the worst of the mud from his   
body. Mulder had the fireplace lit. Again. Another   
argument Alex had hastily conceded when 

//I need it, damn you! I'm so damn cold all the time and   
it's *your* fault...//

*that* look had stolen over his lover's eyes...

Flare of gold in 

//Always and forever...//

moonlight, deceptive, a lie of wildness and vitality that   
he'd fallen in love with that First Night they'd been   
together, blood black tacky on their lips in the glare of   
hopelessly banal neon... salt and copper no, that was   
wrong, it was iron old and strong and true but it hadn't   
lasted long before he knew what it truly portended...   
useless, and now, two years later, near constant despair. 

Alex watched the pungent smoke spiral raggedly into the   
blankly grey sky. The rain was too weak to be satisfying,   
and it sliced the ephemeral elegance of the plume to   
tatters, but as a drop slid down the crevice between nose   
and cheekbone he decided that the illusion of tears was   
fitting. He was well and truly sodden, though, and after   
another several minutes he went inside.

Mulder was in his usual place, a bare three feet from the

//Listen and well, Alexei, this is the most important of   
the Rules: There are still a number of things that can   
kill you in this world but only this can make it *hurt*. //

fire, humped and muddled beneath a pile of quilts. Alex   
knew he had to be uncomfortable, but had long since given   
up on reasoning with the man. In the old days

//It wasn't supposed to be like this...//

simple misdirection had worked. Shamelessly bad jokes, the   
most bizarre seductions 

//Always young, always *strong,* dammit...//

he could come up with... diversions like that night at the   
porn theater

gorging, glutting themselves on the desperate and perverse   
and oh it was even better when they were dirty and strange   
hints and images of petty sins committed in sweaty   
abasements to Asmodeus and if they were hard as diamond   
some freakish negative of obsidian at the dark little   
fantasies of sons and daughters taut and

//so precious...//

constrained swallowed down with the life the blood well,   
weren't they doing a public service? 

Alex shook off his thoughts and gazed at his companion   
again. He hadn't moved or done anything to acknowledge   
Alex's presence. 

"I'm going to take a shower." 

Silence.

"Care to join me?"

//C'mon, remember the bathtub at least...//

"It won't work, Alex. You know we'll never be clean again."

//Christ, not *this* again.//

"Mulder... Mulder, I didn't force this on you. You asked --  
*begged*-- me for it. It's too fuck--"

The older man didn't bother to turn. "Fucking late for   
guilt. For you, maybe. You ought to know by now that it's   
never too late for me, *Alex.*"

"Oh, of *course* not. Not for you. Poor Saint Fox, sins of   
the whole wide world on your shoulders. Well I'm fucking   
sick of it, Mulder. Guilt I could handle. That much I   
expected from you. But I've been thinking--"

"Did it hurt?"

"Shut the fuck up. Just be quiet for a little while and   
listen 

//And well.//

while I break a few things down for you. You're quite good   
at it, after all, giving me your back night after goddamn   
ni--"

"Just say it, damn you!"

Alex closed his mouth abruptly, long since accustomed to   
the lack of a click and absentmindedly lapping the two   
small drops of blood from his lower lip. He *had* been   
babbling, he supposed.

"Fine. Here it is. You had made your decision long before   
you tracked me down that night. Sometimes I think you'd   
made it years before we ever met. If you ever got a chance,   
a *real* chance for... power, maybe? Or just to leave the   
world behind?"

No answer.

"Whatever. If you ever got the chance you would take it, no   
questions asked. And so you did. And it was sweet in the   
beginning, Mulder. You can't tell me it wasn't. We gave   
each other *all* of each other that night and again and   
again after that whenever--"

"Just get to the point, Alex."

//So tired... we don't have to be like this...//

"Just let me finish, will you?"

A

//Impatient? Uncomfortable?//

shift under the blankets was Alex's only answer.

"Taking Them out. One by one. Quick or slow, however you   
wanted and I watched you smile, Mulder. I know, dammit I   
*know* you were happy. But then it changed. You stopped   
laughing and I called it boredom. Stopped hunting and I   
blamed fatigue and I brought you victims. I did everything   
I could to make you happy again and..."

Late August and he'd passed by a puppy farm. Hadn't fed and   
it was a maddening buzz under the flesh but he'd seen   
them. Twin Akitas. Pure black... winsome and fine in the   
West Virginia starlight bounding and yipping and tumbling   
and he'd demanded the breeder let him buy them Right Now.   
Bram and Camilla. Ludicrous perfection in silken fur...

"And sometimes it

//worked for a while... until you just plain stopped   
feeding...//

worked. That's how I know it wasn't really guilt,

//You were lean... bones showing through, veins sickly blue   
even in the dimmest light. I'd decided to let you starve   
the ennui out of your system,//

Mulder. If it was I would've seen it earlier. We wouldn't   
have had the good times..."

//too late too late I could hear the whimpered screams too   
damn human but not enough for me to drown them out as   
irrelevant as meat for the beast and there was...   
matter... all over our beautiful little apartment and   
Camilla was trying to kick but you had her by the   
throat... worrying...// 

The memory was still powerful. Still shocking, foul,   
despite the passage of time. Alex had loved them in his   
way. But, as with everything unpleasant, it had its uses.   
It hardened him.

"And, really, that's what pisses me off, Mulder. The fact   
that you would cloak yourself in this lying, *puling*   
imitation of shame. Don't you at least have the good   
fucking grace to tell me what's really wrong?"

He didn't really expect anything like a real answer, but   
the insult had the desired effect of getting the man to   
*move*. And he quickly regretted it. Mulder stood and   
shrugged off the blankets, revealing the black jeans and   
t-shirt he'd been wearing for far too many days. Then he   
turned. The hours before the fire had left his 

//beautiful...//

face blistering and burnt, not the red of healthy, living   
flesh, but charred.

"Oh Christ, Mulder, why do--"

"You wanted to know why, Alex? I miss the sun. Plain and   
simple. I. Miss. The. Sun."

Alex couldn't help but snort a little at the thought.

"Do you really expect me to believe this... *this* is all   
over some hot fucking ball in the sky? It's not like you   
were ever a sand- between-your-toes kinda guy, Mulder. Wha-  
-"

"That's just it, Alex. Regret." 

Alex watched the other man raise too-thin hands to his   
face, wincing a little in sympathy at the sharp hiss of   
pain as fingertips brushed new scars. The blood would heal   
it but... He schooled his voice to gentleness.

"Why?"

"It's that hoary old cliche. You never know what you have   
until you lose it. And it's gone. I'll never watch that   
play of light and shadow under a dogwood in May. Never   
sweat in July." He snorted without amusement and plucked a   
bit of skin from his cheek. "Never get a fucking tan."

It was flippant, but Alex could hear the truth behind the   
self-mockery. He remembered those two short weeks between   
finals and graduation. Beautiful weather and all you   
needed to make the day perfect were a keg, a hibachi, and   
"Cinnamon Girl" on the stereo. And the late afternoon   
sunlight was *just* that shade of burnished gold and the   
world was right. Could it... 

"Don't say never, Mulder. You... I've heard rumors. Old   
ones. Powerful enough to face the dawn..."

Alex watched the hazel eyes narrow in suspicion, but, so   
far as he knew, he was telling the truth.

"We can have forever, Mulder. But we'll have change as   
well, don't you see? We just have to be..."

//strong//

"... a little patient. Can you do that with me? For me?"

Alex walked slowly, carefully to his lover and bared his   
own throat.

"Please, Mulder. We have all the time in the world..."

He closed his eyes. And waited. A soft brush of lips and   
the ghost of tears that really would never, could never,   
be shed again. And when the pain came it was beautiful,   
and oh, so right.


	8. Taedium Vitae

Mulder stood before the fireplace. The basalt was dark with   
old ash and smoke, the interior filled with wood in varying   
stages of char. The scent made him hungry for that   
approximation of oblivion he'd found here, night after   
night, for months.

But he'd promised to try.

He plucked at the sleeves of the shirt, smoothed the old   
jeans. This was part of trying. Clean, neat appearance.   
Make yourself ready to get out and -- Lord help us all --   
interact with the outside world. Get some exercise. Mulder   
wondered how well an attempt to get some sun would go over. 

And Alex... Alex was so damned easy to please. Hunt, snark,   
maybe smile and the younger man would grin like a twelve   
year old. Sometimes it felt like Alex was one bitten lip   
from blurting out something along the lines of "There, now   
that wasn't so hard, was it?" No good could possibly come   
out of answering a question like that.

But he'd promised to try. The fireplace would be dark   
tonight, and just as cold as he was. 

Wash of soap-smell and steam announced Alex's presence. He   
was always there, really. A subtle pressure at the base of   
the spine. A voice at his ear.

"What can I do?"

Always, always the unspoken 'beloved.' Mulder wondered if   
Alex counted the number of times he used the word, allowed   
himself a quota of them per day.

"Mulder? Talk to me. Please."

An arm around his waist, the whisper of warmth from the   
shower settling against his back...

"Nothing, Alex. Just... just leave me alone for now, OK?"

Mulder felt a slight stiffening, but Alex still planted a   
soft kiss on his shoulder before moving away. 

*****

"Anatoly."

"Hmm...?" His own instinctive response snapped Mulder back   
to himself. Still life in black jeans, arms firmly wrapped   
around his own torso. His body language made him ill. 

"I told you about him, Mulder. He's the one who... who made   
me. Trained me. He's coming."

He turned to find Alex half in and half out of the   
stubbornly pristine armchair, book tossed carelessly to the   
floor, expression a sort of dreamy excitement. "Why?"

Small, brief frown, but Alex's eyes were far away. "I don't   
know... I haven't seen him since I left Russia."

Mulder made his tone light. "Is he coming to take you   
back?"

A grin. "Or kill me for the mess I made of his club before   
I left... I never told you about that?"

"No." 

"Oh... long story. There was this nosy cop, and too many   
fucking candles and--"

The low purr of an expensive engine in the driveway cut him   
off. Alex was immediately out of the chair and out of the   
house. Mulder watched at the window. Anatoly was a little   
shorter than Alex, black hair and curiously light eyes.   
Dark, travel rumpled suit. He took Alex in his arms and   
held him close, moon-bright smile very clear at this   
distance. When they pulled apart, though, Anatoly's   
expression darkened almost immediately. He shot a glance   
toward Mulder and tugged a mostly unresisting Alex into the   
car.

It was impossible to believe they were talking about   
anything but him. Mulder left the window and went around   
back to the deck. Settled himself in one of the low-slung   
patio chairs and waited. The next thing he was aware of was   
an iron hand around his throat, a marked lack of floor   
under his feet, and the relentlessly even dig of the   
aluminum siding into his spine.

"I take it you've come to kill me?"

His voice was a low and unfamiliar whistle. It had been a   
long time since anyone had been able to overpower him.

"Right now it seems like an excellent idea, Mulder." 

Anatoly's tone was a bright tenor, though the accent was   
mostly undefinable.

"Finish it, then. I'm tired of this."

Mulder immediately found himself tossed with bruising force   
back into his chair. He landed with a thump that sent the   
thing -- and him in it -- reeling dangerously close to the   
edge of the deck. Anatoly dragged one of the other chairs   
to a point opposite Mulder and perched. 

"Could you stop posturing for just *one* moment? Do you   
really think you're the only vampire to suffer from   
depression?" Mulder opened his mouth to speak, but Anatoly   
just barreled on. "Let me see if I've got this right: 'Oh,   
I shouldn't be enjoying myself so much, oh I'm killing so   
many people...' Blah blah blah. Get over it. If it wasn't   
you it would be AIDS. A car crash. Or, God help them, *old   
age*."

"Wha--"

"People die every day without doing a damn thing with it.   
Useless deaths. Your victims... at least they're dying for   
a *reason*."

"Keeping me alive to kill more people?"

"Well, I didn't say it was a *good* reason."

"This is pointless. You're not taking me seriously--"

"And why should I?"

"Were you even going to kill me at all?"

"Mulder, Mulder, Mulder! You're not a person, you're an   
archetype."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I mean, You're the attractively suffering vampire. You're   
an intelligent young man; doesn't that grate a little   
against your sense of originality?"

Mulder was silent for a moment, took the time to settle   
himself more comfortably in the chair. "You know, I can see   
how Alex fell for you--"

"You're assuming he had a choice."

"Wha--"

"Nothing, it doesn't matter." Mulder twitched internally at   
the interruption. "Look, I know what you're going to say.   
You think I'm ignoring some fundamental truth, don't you?"

Mulder settled back in his chair, eyed the man   
speculatively. "Yes. You are. We're killing people. Lots   
of them. Every day. That can't ever be right."

"So what does right have to do with anything, Mulder?   
You're not God."

"Oh, we're going to discuss religion, now?"

"If you'd like. I've spent a lot of time in monasteries..."

"Is there a joke to follow that?"

"Not really. Let's just say they're wonderful places to   
decompress after a relationship with someone like you."

"The abuse can stop any time, you know."

"Can it? Seems to me it's been going on for quite a while."

"So this is about Alex?"

"I care about Alexei deeply, true. But this is only about   
him insofar as it relates to his feelings about you."

"Killer, theologian, roving Immortal Relationship   
Counselor?"

"Again, Mulder, if you'd like. I'd say you were lucky I   
found this sort of behavior charming, but then you're still   
of the opinion that you want to die."

"Are you going to tell me what I want and don't want?" He   
was only a little surprised by the low, dangerous quality   
of his own voice.

"If I wanted to, I could make you believe you desperately   
needed to tear your mother to shreds."

"Are you suggesting I let you give me some sort of... of   
moral lobotomy?"

"Perhaps I haven't been clear. You allow me *nothing*."

Mulder just stared until Anatoly caught the bridge of his   
nose between thumb and forefinger. 

"I'm sorry, Mulder. That was rude of me. I only wish to   
talk."

"What you *want* is to make me see the world the way you   
do, Anatoly."

"Well, isn't that what all discussion is about? The   
attempt, with varying degrees of politesse, to bring   
another person around? Oh, we can call it all sorts of   
high-handed things, sharing ideas, whatever. In the end, we   
all want to be right."

"I may be young compared to you, but I'm not a child."

"I know, I'm sorry... I'm afraid I've spent much of this   
past century being rather pedantic."

"Comes with the territory, I suppose. Look, the point is   
that I spent my life hunting, fighting, and kill--"

"Your life is over."

"If that's true, why can't I just be dead?"

Mulder watched the way the corners of Anatoly's mouth   
tightened as he gathered his thoughts. It was a forcible   
reminder of Alex, but the sound of the other man's voice   
was an inescapable tug to the present.

"Answer me this: Would you have been able to catch the   
monsters if you thought of them as monsters?"

"Touche. Profilers learn to know them, to empathize... But   
that doesn't change the fact that we're doing all those   
things for the purpose of *stopping* them."

"And you were never... intrigued?"

"Of course I was; I wouldn't have been human if I wasn't.   
That's not the point. Those people had decided to view the   
rest of the human race as something Other, and preyed on   
them. They needed to be stopped."

"Because there are rules?"

"You make it sound so... artificial. How can you do that?   
Was it a conscious decision? You were mortal once,   
yourself."

"Yes, I was. I'm not any longer, and neither are you and   
Alex. But profile me, Mulder. What do you see?"

Mulder paused for a moment, looked up at the night sky.   
There were nuances to the indigo he'd missed while alive.   
There were sounds he hadn't known. There was little joy in   
knowing these things -- at least, none that lasted for very   
long. He looked at Anatoly again.

"You decided when you were very young that there had to be   
more to life than what you were living. You decided you   
were better than... whoever was around you. It wasn't   
arrogance, just simple truth. You never, ever lied to   
yourself. That was the coping mechanism of the weak. 

"Of course, all these decisions just made it easier to   
distance yourself from the rest of the species. Were you a   
soldier? Maybe. Not unless there was some chance for you to   
rise through the ranks, though. You'd never have been able   
to stomach taking orders from anyone who lacked your own...   
worth.

"If you did kill before whatever happened to make you a   
vampire occurred--"

Mulder broke off at a very loud eyebrow quirk from Anatoly,   
and shifted a bit in his chair before continuing.

"If you did kill, you probably made a point of getting over   
it quickly. Because you were just doing what was necessary,   
therefore you had no right to feel bad about it. Weak and   
silly to do otherwise.

"However, unless you're a biological devoid, the natural   
impulses against taking the life of one of your own had to   
be going *somewhere*. And that's what I don't understand.   
You quite obviously care about Alex. You've hinted there   
were others. Why doesn't the rest of the human race count?

"Or, how am I supposed to believe in the reality of those   
feelings you claim? It certainly seems more logical for you   
to have simply convinced yourself -- people like you are   
good at that -- that you were the sort of person who   
*should* care for a certain other sort of person."

There was a silence. At last, Mulder said, "I apologize.   
You can understand that I'm taking these things...   
personally."

A nod. "One of the things I pride myself on is the ability   
to hear the truth about myself, of course." Anatoly smiled   
wryly before continuing, "But you're missing the point,   
too."

"Enlighten me. I'm not in the habit of asking questions   
just to hear myself talk. Anymore."

"Well, first tell me this: What 'natural impulses' are you   
talking about? The only members of our 'own kind' we don't   
automatically try to kill -- without conditioning -- are   
those we recognize as blood kin, and those we're looking to   
screw."

"I take it you don't subscribe to the theory that every man   
is your brother."

"It just doesn't *work* that way. You know that as well as   
I do."

"Rules, conditioning. You certainly know how to push my   
buttons."

"I've had a few years to practice."

Mulder snorted. "The point is, sometimes chaos is wrong.   
It's all well and good to have an open mind and take nature   
as it comes... But I've killed, and if I'm not stopped I'll   
kill again."

"So why haven't you stopped yourself? You're the monster-  
killer, after all. Why does there have to be all this...   
this *melodrama*?"

"Stop making such a fuss over my life and death?"

"You're archetyping again."

"Sorry, I guess I've just needed to get this out."

"Understandable. But..."

"Why haven't I killed myself?"

"Yes."

"Because I'm a coward?"

"Is that your answer?"

"Yes. No. I'm really not sure... I have to admit, I haven't   
gone into this very deeply."

"Why not?"

"Because my mother was weak and my father an alcoholic   
abuser, doctor."

"Come, come, Mulder. Turnabout's fair play, isn't it?"

"When did this get to be about fairness? Remember, all the   
dead people?"

"This is about you, right now, Mulder. And all the dead   
people. If you're so sickened by yourself why didn't you   
just snap Alex's neck one night after fucking him and creep   
up to the roof to wait for dawn? Throw yourself in a   
fireplace -- I noticed you have a large one -- and go up   
the chimney?"

"I thought we'd already established that I didn't know." 

"But we've also established that you're a brilliant   
profiler. How hard can it be?"

"Some of us are fonder of self-deceit than others."

"The very fact you could *say* that puts the lie to it,   
Mulder."

"That sounds like a word puzzle--"

"Stop fucking around."

"Tell me this: What *is* this existence about, then? We're   
not alive, we're not dead, we kill again and again..."

"I'm more alive than the vast majority of those people you   
claim to be so worried about."

"And that makes you superior?"

"No, but it certainly makes me feel that way. You make it   
too easy to skate around on the surface of things. Where   
was I?"

"I believe we were studiously not talking about why I   
haven't just offed myself."

"This is the point where Alexei flings himself at you,   
isn't it?"

"Lord, that point passed *hours* ago."

Anatoly laughed then, and the sound was clean, nearly   
simple.

"I do want to answer your question, Mulder. But it's hard   
not to sound like a bad musical number when you're talking   
about the meaning of life."

"And if you're depressed you wind up sounding like bad   
industrial."

"I'll take your word on that."

"I'm really not an idiot; I know what you're trying to   
say... Christ, Alex finds a new way to say it every fucking   
day. 'We've got this new life, and it's very beautiful, and   
even the ugly parts have their own internal loveliness, so   
why can't you just settle back and enjoy it? And could you   
please eat more? I worry.'"

"And of course it bothers you that he worries."

Silence.

"Don't look at me that way. Don't you think it's time you   
talked about some of these things?"

"Nobody likes a touchy-feely vampire."

"All right, all right. You don't want to talk about this.   
How did you wind up with Alexei anyway?"

"You couldn't just ask an easy question?"

"It's against the rules for touchy-feely vampires."

Mulder snorted, put his head in his hands for a moment. "He   
would've gone with you anyway, you know. You didn't have   
to... have to do whatever it is you did."

"That worries you, does it? You wonder if I took him   
against his will. Raped him."

"Well, you hinted at that very thing earlier. I've gotten   
the impression you don't do that very much unless it's   
important. Lay it out in a breadcrumb trail for the   
contrary sonofabitch, right? Too obvious and he'll only   
curl his lip and walk away?"

"It only arouses me when you show those flashes of self-  
awareness, Mulder."

Mulder chose to ignore the tease. "Why didn't he have a   
choice? What did you do to him?"

"Two very different questions... He didn't have a choice   
because he walked right into our -- Natalia, Josef, and my   
\-- literal parlor, and he was very beautiful, and very   
deceitful, and he reminded us too much of ourselves..." He   
pursed his lips for a brief moment before catching Mulder's   
gaze again. "Just under the surface was both pain and   
predator. Your eyes are far away. It sounds quite familiar,   
doesn't it?"

Dismissive gesture. "Of course it does. Did.... Did you   
hurt him?"

"Perhaps a little more than he hurt you." A look that   
forced Mulder to acknowledge the foolishness of the   
question. "It *is* in his nature to struggle..." Small,   
private smile. "He didn't know us, after all."

Mulder winced. "Where is he now?"

"I sent him hunting."

"You *sent* him hunting?"

A chuckle. "Well, I promised him I wouldn't kill you unless   
it was *absolutely* necessary." 

"It doesn't seem right for him to be missing this."

"Yes, all this honesty. Heaven forbid you actually tell   
*him* any of this."

"You're just getting bitchier as the night rolls on, you   
know."

"Yes, I know. I've been told it's a good look on me."

Mulder restrained the urge to roll his eyes. "Where were   
we?"

"I believe you were going to tell me how you wound up with   
Alexei in the first place."

"I... I'm not entirely sure. There were killings, and   
disappearances, and I saw Alex at one of the scenes. I   
followed him--" Mulder cut himself off with a snort. "I   
suppose he *let* me follow him. Wanted to know what I would   
do."

"And what did you do?"

"I stopped lying to myself a little bit.... He kissed me."   
Mulder shook his head. "You know, that's the problem.   
'Honesty' was a lot easier when it went hand in hand with   
self-denial."

"Well... that's interesting. What *was* your religious   
upbringing, Mulder?" 

"Vague. Vaguely Jewish, vaguely Presbyterian, vaguely   
designed to make me grow up feeling *distinctly* guilty   
about not doing everything and anything to be a Valuable   
Member of Society."

"And, of course, you know exactly what that did to you, and   
even the slightest quirk of my eyebrow would be an insult.   
You know, we're not all that different, Mulder."

Mulder sighed, leaned back in his chair. "No, we're not.   
We're both relentlessly self-aware enough to believe we're   
entitled to the assorted neuroses, psychoses, and   
pathologies that we know full well we suffer from."

A nod. "After all, once you know it's there it can't   
*really* cause problems. You just smack it down when it   
starts becoming... visible."

"Well... Hmm."

"Yes?"

"You're right.... It's how I lived my life. They don't let   
people carry a gun if they can't play it straight." A dry   
sound of amusement. "Well, mostly."

"I did pick up your problems with authority figures."

"After only one visit, doctor?"

Anatoly snorted quietly. "Sorry. I'll do my best to be as   
thick as I possibly can, lest you get the impression I   
understand you *too* much."

"This is the point where Alex flings himself at you, isn't   
it?"

"No, I've long since carted him off to bed. Or floor."

"Do you really think fling is the right word? I've always   
considered it more of a pounce. Maybe a swoop." Musingly. 

"You're right. Though sometimes he gets that exasperated   
look, like he wishes he had a giant slingshot to attach   
himself to."

Mulder threw his head back and chortled. "You know, he's   
right. It really should be enough. And I can come up with   
dozens of reasons why it isn't, but all of it.... It's an   
opportunistic sort of thing, I think. It's not enough   
because it's not enough, but look at how well I make my   
case."

Anatoly nodded, waited for Mulder to continue. 

"The self-denial... I could tell myself I wanted him, and I   
could tell myself it was wrong for any number of reasons,   
and I could tell myself I *still* wanted him -- I was very   
honest about it, and proud -- and I could point out how   
giving in to it would ruin the Work. And *then* I could   
deny myself his touch. I remember how he smelled, how much   
I wanted to just..."

"I hope you appreciate my not pointing out all the things   
you're not saying."

"I do, oh, I do. I know it must be hard."

"I'm willing to make these sacrifices."

Mulder scrubbed his face with his hands. "When he kissed me   
a lot of things changed. It's always easier to say no when   
you don't know what it'll be like to surrender."

"And Alex was too busy flinging himself to hear all the   
'no's you weren't saying."

"It should have been obvious to him that this was a... a   
lifestyle I couldn't handle."

"And it should be obvious to you that we're absolutely   
*clueless* about people like you, sometimes..."

"What about that superiority thing?"

"No, this falls under the 'I'm allowed to be obtuse because   
I know it' clause."

"Couldn't we just be having meaningless sex?"

"That would be *much* too easy. Besides, I like hearing you   
talk about Alexei."

"Alex."

A smile. "As you wish."

"All right. You know everything there is to know about   
yourself and how to push my buttons, besides. So how come   
you don't know what a bad idea it is to make people like me   
vampires?"

"Oh, did I say I didn't know that? No, we're fully aware of   
the dangers in turning people like you. There's even a   
Rule, of sorts."

"Ah, yes. The Rules. How *did* you teach Alex to speak in   
capitals so easily, anyway?"

"You're still worried about what we did to him? Do you   
think he wouldn't love you so much if I hadn't *done*   
something to him?"

"You're being too direct again."

"Isn't it getting a little late to play these games?"

"Tell me the Rule."

"Fuck them, eat them, move on."

"That's... that's practical."

Anatoly nodded slowly and somewhat dreamily. "Of course,   
there wouldn't be a Rule if we were always so practical..."

"Is that anything like the detailed instructions on   
toothpick packages?"

One eyebrow arched. "Something else I'll have to take your   
word on."

"Culture lag must be a bitch."

"You get used to it."

Mildly uncomfortable silence. "What happened to your   
archetypes?"

"I killed the first, at her own request. The second killed   
himself. The third disappeared... I know he's still alive,   
I can feel him, but he won't let me get close... Do you   
need to know more?"

"You're not making a very good case."

"You're the one so wrapped up in the beauty of the   
individual."

"You loved them, though."

"I never would have made them like me if I didn't. How   
could you expect Alex to watch you grow old, sick, weak?"

A vaguely tired gesture. "That's exactly what he was   
supposed to be able to do. Or, barring that, kill me."

"Because that's what monsters do. Sorry, monsters are also   
stupid."

"You know I don't think of you that way, don't you?"

"Yes. I also know you desperately wish you could."

Mulder tried to catch the other man's gaze, but the   
moonlight made the blue eyes gleam too flatly. He felt his   
own mouth twist a bit. "And your next question is: Since I   
can't seem to kill myself, or leave, why haven't I flat out   
asked Alex to kill me. Especially since I know that, like   
you, he's an idiot about people like me and needs to be   
led."

"I was actually feeling rather whimsical. It seemed like a   
good time to ask if you'd like to suck me. You could, of   
course, take that any way you wish."

"Liar."

"Yes. Though I wouldn't object..."

"Strenuously."

"Right."

"I haven't asked Alex because that would be admitting total   
surrender. I haven't asked Alex because I don't trust him   
to do it, and... and he's done everything I've asked of   
him. It would be a failure for both of us, and ruin the   
good we do have. I haven't asked Alex because I'm terrified   
he would do it, and move on, and be happy with someone   
else. I haven't asked Alex because... because I know   
exactly how much it would hurt him."

"Alexei--"

"Alex."

"Alex didn't call me here, you know."

Silence.

"Come on, Mulder, this is *Alex* we're talking about."

"I know, I know. It's an insult to even consider that he'd   
call someone in to do his dirty work." Twist of the lips.   
"A man can hope, though."

"He's not supposed to be this good to you, there   
shouldn't--"

"There shouldn't be positives. I shouldn't be enjoying   
myself, blah blah, this is right back where we started.   
Doesn't that tell you anything?"

A long silence as Anatoly visibly rejected several   
responses before continuing. "It would, of course, confirm   
every deep-seated belief you have about the rest of   
humanity -- and otherwise -- if I just nodded my head, came   
over there and killed you.

"Tell me, Mulder, how are my methods of distancing myself   
from my former species so different from yours?"

"Other than the fact I leave them alive?"

"Do you?"

"Since when do you have the right to argue about the   
emotional health of a species you look at as talking food?"

"This isn't about how *I* see them, Mulder."

"All right, so I suck people dry and then have the temerity   
to expect them to live on and suffer -- if I even bother to   
consider what I've done to them. I'm also a coward--"

"You're archetyping again."

"Well, there's a *reason* it's an archetype."

"Where *is* Alex, anyway? I'm strong enough to fling him at   
you properly." 

Short bark of laughter. "That's also the point, isn't it?   
That he fixes things. Or that he tries to. All the time."

Anatoly nodded, waited for Mulder to continue.

"It only makes it worse, and I know how *wrong* that is,   
which proceeds to make it even worse, and so on."

"So... you decided that since there was no easy way for you   
to die that you had to live. Living requires you doing   
things you don't want to do, so you have to... turn   
yourself off to a certain extent?"

"Basically. And you have no idea why I can't just reinvent   
myself, take my Alex-flingings like a man, and move on."

"I didn't turn Alex to see him miserable for eternity, and,   
no, killing you *wouldn't* make him happy. Think about the   
holes that still exist in your life -- and none of them   
were lovers. Or were they?"

Humorless smile. "Some... potential. But this has...   
limited my options. Can't go around making unsuitable   
people vampires just because you don't want to say   
goodbye."

"Touche. Would it make you feel better if I scolded Alexei   
roundly? Spanked him, maybe?"

"*Alex*."

Anatoly winced. "That was nearly unintentional, Mulder. I'm   
sorry."

Mulder waved him off distractedly. "I wanted him when he   
was pretending to be an innocent. I fell in love with   
him... after. I do love him, I can say it, and I'm   
desperate to hold on to the part of myself that knows how   
wrong that is. That can tell you precisely why. What   
happens if I let go of... of everything?"

"And you don't particularly appreciate my coming here, the   
implications..."

"I'd be pretty fucking pissed if you ran off with Alex and   
left me alive."

"Can you give me a good reason not to do just that? I mean,   
what you're doing to Alex..."

"The emotional lives of soulless predators. No, no, I know   
that's the point. I still have my soul; I'm not better than   
you. Or Alex."

"He loves you. You love him. Explain to me why this is so   
*hard*."

"I already did. This... this rebellion is the last chance I   
have to pretend to be human."

"But that's specious. You're still you, just without the   
trappings of a society you never *really* believed in   
anyway. I swear, I think this making Alex your father thing   
is really the worst of all of it."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"And when did I get to be a Freudian? Look, this business   
with *trying* for him." Anatoly's tenor flattened into an   
eerily accurate impression of Mulder's own. "'Oh, I'll get   
cleaned up. Oh, I'll stop playing with fire. Oh, I'll go   
hunting. See what a good boy I am? Look what I do for you!'   
That isn't love."

Mulder felt himself snarl. A point lost, but the night was   
growing old. "What do you *want* from me?"

"I want you to live, you self-centered idiot. And that's   
all Alex wants, too. Don't play stupid with me; we both   
know *precisely* what makes Alex happiest."

"When I'm happy. Fine. How do you go about being happy,   
Anatoly? What life lessons have I missed out on?"

"Oh, ask the difficult questions." Anatoly closed his eyes   
for a moment and Mulder watched them move beneath the pale   
lids. Restless. "What do you do when he reaches out for   
you? When he touches your face and comes close enough to   
murmur in your ear. Do you lean into the touch with   
anything more than your body?"

"Of course I -- God, is that what I've been saying to you?   
No, I remember... that's the first thing I remember. After   
the change. He held me and whispered... I had no clue what   
he was saying... but I also did. And I remembered. I   
remember."

"You know I'm resisting the urge to make encouraging   
noises."

"I know. You can yell at me some more if you'd like."

"No, I've had my fill of that for the time being. But..."

"Tell you why -- with all my talk about natural impulses --   
I didn't immediately just cleave to Alex. Or even   
gradually."

"Well, I was thinking the usual. If you did that you'd have   
to not only admit you love him, but that he loves you. At   
that point... No, I'll say it -- at *this* point there's no   
choice but to accept that you belong together and that it's   
idiocy to fuck around."

"Do you think the Bureau shrinks would get any better if   
they had 500 years or so to practice?"

Anatoly laughed. "It's entirely possible..."

Mulder settled back in his chair with an audible thump.   
"Were you ever a lawyer?"

"No, but I've killed hundreds."

Mulder snorted. "What, were you actively *hunting* them? I   
mean, how many lawyers prowl the night time streets?"

"Well, in the *old* days, if you just crept into their   
rooms at night and killed them people blamed ghosts.   
Bogles. Cats."

"'And there was none of this hip hop business either. No,   
not in my day.'"

"Don't make me hit you."

"Don't tell me Alex made you promise not to do that,   
either?"

"No, no, it was really just the killing he was worried   
about. But..."

Mulder turned to face him, then. It seemed abruptly absurd   
that they remained so far away, in their silly little deck   
chairs. "But what?" And his voice was too low.

They looked at each other for a long moment, and Mulder was   
certain he could feel the touch of cool, unfamiliar fingers   
against his lips, but then--

"I wonder what's keeping Alex."

"Did you send him back down to Maryland? Demand the head of   
Cal Ripken, Jr.?"

"Well, what does he *usually* do when he hunts?"

"Even when we're together it's usually pretty efficient...   
Hell, even when we play games it doesn't take *this* long.   
Are you sure he doesn't expect you to kill me and   
efficiently dispose of my body and effects?"

"I don't know what he *expects* me to do, but I did   
promise... Maybe he was expecting you to make it   
necessary."

"It really is touching that he has so much faith in me."

"In your ability to piss people off."

"Well, yes."

Anatoly stretched a bit. "So..."

"Yeah."

"Good Lord, have we actually reached a lull in the   
conversation with no deeper meaning at all?"

"It had to happen at some point. This is where Alex and I   
would be cuddling, by the way."

"Braggart." Anatoly paused, his mouth twisting   
unpleasantly. "That was rather bitter, wasn't it? I'm   
sorry, Mulder."

"No... no, it's all right."

"It isn't all right. But I would... I'm not noble. At all.   
You would, perhaps, do well to remember that."

Mulder nodded.

"I think it's time for me to go. Give... give Alex my best,   
yes?"

Mulder stood to see him off. Anatoly stayed just long   
enough to acknowledge the courtesy with a brief nod, and   
then was gone. Mulder settled back in his chair, gazed up   
at the sky. The stars were fading, and he knew Alex would   
be home soon.


	9. For the season.

I wonder about this holiday, sometimes. I've never found   
terror in a mask. I've learned not to fear the cold, wet   
touch of the other. And decay... the shrivel and slough of   
flesh, the whiteness of bone... There is beauty there, once   
you know where to look.

There are things that, once learned, can never be   
forgotten. This is a good thing. A fine thing.

Even if you are softened enough by time and comfort to wish  
for forgetfulness. 

I look at Mulder and he is happy. Once a year the whole   
world looks over their shoulders. They laugh, but often   
there is a real touch of terror in their eyes. Once a year   
they wonder why the stories are so old and well-known. They   
remember the worm.

These people, they walk through life with no comprehension   
of the inevitable. Oh, they say, there's no way the Giants   
will make it to the playoffs this year. Or maybe just,   
Bobby is *never* going to speak to me again. And this is   
how they view fate. This is what they see when they look at   
the choices they've made -- clearly defined paths, fuzzily   
defined endings. 

I used to wonder how their worlds could be so narrow. Then   
I would gloat -- *my* vision was clear. Now... Now I fear.   
I've seen so much, and I know now that I cannot see all.

I wonder about God. Wonder how long it took before He went  
insane. A millenium? A week? I cannot curse God anymore.   
There is so much. Even if He knew, He couldn't have   
understood.

The world is a fearsome place when you pity God. Perhaps   
this is what it's all about. Perhaps this is the time of   
year when the world offers up a larger part of the picture   
than we could normally digest. 

The masks, as always, are only window-dressing.

*

Grey-brown skeletal trees clawing at the sky and Alex   
breathed deep. Burning leaves and children. Sugar-sweat.   
Piping cries. Alex felt himself tightening and the chill   
wind on his teeth was the best indicator of his mood he'd   
yet found.

Mulder hated Halloween -- the celebration of the false and   
depraved. Alex, perhaps predictably, loved it and for once   
had no reason to regret the fact his lover had refused to   
hunt with him.

There was nothing quite like watching the world struggle   
gleefully to make itself more like the vision of his mind   
he most treasured. Demons walked, witches talked, and all   
set themselves out to beg without shame. Give me   
sweetness, give me joy, or I will punish you and yours.

There was a passion to being alone this night, a grace to   
the solitude of the hunt. All senses clean and the rush and   
skitter of leaves was both counterpoint and companion.   
Perhaps he wasn't alone at all. He was proof the dead could   
walk, after all. 

The thought was a comforting one. Alex wanted a pack to run  
with, a collection of individuals with a taste for iron and   
fear and a love for him, as well. There was no shame in   
this admission. He had an eternity of cold and the company   
of the dead was better than no company at all...

Even if he feared no one would understand the joy in the   
crisp snap of a small throat. In the wonder of grief to   
follow when her body was found after the first thaw. 

//Will I feel it this time?//

Blood and fear, wind and cold. Alex wanted his heart to   
pound, but the sight of bright color high on his cheeks was   
more than enough for this night.

*

I'm really quite superstitious. I know it must seem hard to   
believe. I know it must make people like you feel   
immeasurably better when you can look at me and smugly   
assume the torments of the unbeliever, the blasphemer, are   
my fate.

But I believe. I pray like you. I fear like you. And when   
the fear grows unbearable I offer worship to the nameless   
gods you've come to disdain over time. 

The cult of the gun -- The worship is sleek and clean as I   
can make it, bright flash and the cry of air being rent.

The cult of the night -- I blend and I creep, and my only   
shadow is what the moon chooses to give.

The cult of the dead -- So silent, but on nights like these   
the fog is rich and thick with souls unhappy with me. The   
worship will never appease, but that, too, fits.

I hear you laugh at me. So obvious, you say. So pathetic   
that he finds his comfort this way. 

It doesn't make me angry anymore. It doesn't make me doubt.  
Tell me, when you catch me move in the corner of your eye,   
when an unfamiliar noise makes your heart catch in your   
throat... Do you laugh then?


	10. Glory Beyond Our Reach -- AU!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: A possible ending to the Dead Things universe. Call it two or three months after the ending of "Time." In this story, "Taedium Vitae" never happened.

Alex stood at the window, watching the snow fall. Large,   
wet flakes of the sort that settled on the bare trees with   
the slow heft of freeze. Of the sort that coated the land   
with a thick, silent weight. 

That last didn't feel quite right, and he closed his eyes   
to listen. Quiet and quiet and... there. Perhaps fifteen   
miles to the rough Northeast a crunch, muffled and   
rumbling. Some winter-dead thing surrendering to the weight   
of water and chill. 

Sometimes he wondered at his own morbidity. Looked at his   
pale and mute companion and wondered if there was some   
quality of *Mulder* that was catching. Months since the   
last time they had talked, really talked. And then... Then   
it was only for him to yell, and accuse. For Mulder to   
subside and agree to try. For Alex. 

Alex felt his lips curl back into a smirk. Caught the ghost   
of his reflection in the buttery glare of lamp on window.   
He wasn't so different than he'd always been, really. Same   
face, same not-quite-right hair. Same easy blankness. 

Once he had thought of it as the birth of possibility. A   
walking corpse need fear nothing but discovery by the   
living. He would look at himself and see the perfection of   
a true obscenity. Simple and clean. Unfettered by the heat   
and dirt of mortality. 

And when he longed for the time Before, he would find a   
woman. Lush and simple with a pretty smile, a guileless   
laugh. He would kill her as messily as he could, and bathe   
in her blood until his laughter would cause the stick and   
tack to crack with each convulsion of giggles... And call   
Mulder to bathe him clean again. Once he'd thought it was   
all he needed.

No one had ever paid Alex to think. 

Days like today, evenings of endless February, watching   
Mulder sway with slow grace as he stared at their darkened   
fireplace, he would see the truth. Hours and hours in   
search of a death that ran from them like a frightened   
virgin. That lurked within the grace of their shadows.   
Sometimes Alex thought of the hyena, and longed to stalk   
the savanna with hunched laughter at his heels. Sometimes   
Alex thought of Anatoly and wondered if things might have   
been different if he hadn't fucked things up so royally in   
his flight.

Alex couldn't lie to himself about that... He'd left   
because he'd watched his humanity slip away on leather   
wings and the taste of iron. He'd left because to stay   
would be to admit the truth of the vision. He could be   
angry -- he'd never asked for this. But it wasn't in him to   
deny the end of the paths he'd trod, and to deny his   
complicity in this last re-invention of himself would be a   
disservice to everything he'd once claimed to believe about   
himself.

No. This, too, was his fate. Chosen as neatly as the curl   
of a finger around a trigger. As the brush of his lips   
against a feverish man. Mulder and fire. So cliched, but   
there were reasons such things were said so many times, in   
so many ways. And when Alex had touched him that night,   
long ago, it was as much to slake his thirst for gifts   
forsaken as to taste the man he'd loved for as long as he   
could remember.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

The words had burned themselves on his soul when Mulder had   
shivered within the circle of his arm. Alex had wanted love   
and life; Mulder cold ash and the final betrayal. They had   
both gotten their wishes and were quite neatly stuck with   
them. Stuck here with nothing but each other and the   
deepening shroud of a late winter. 

So much waste... but Alex had one choice left.

"Mulder."

Only a slight pause before the other man turned to face   
him, dusty and thin. Bleak and lovely as a turn of bone.   
"Yes?"

"It's time."

Brief flash of confusion before Mulder's eyes widened. Joy   
and a knife-twist of gratitude. When all was said and done   
the gratitude was far more painful than the immediate curl   
of suspicion. "How... why, Alex?"

He couldn't look at those eyes anymore. There were so many   
things he had wanted...

"Because I want to. Because it's time."

From the corner of his eye Alex could see a brief nod, a   
squaring of relief-loosened shoulders. "Then how?"

Alex turned away from his lover and made his way to the   
door. "Walk with me, beloved. We're going to greet the   
dawn."

******

Once he'd thought he'd never tire of this, of his beautiful   
and strange beloved at his side. The wash of unfamiliar   
emotion flowing over him, cool water and complexity   
whenever Mulder let his guard down. About that, at least,   
he had been correct. Nothing made Alex happier than this.   
A rare and treasured moment of kinship as they made their   
way through the night.

After a time they came to the tree he'd heard snap earlier.   
The break was ragged, sap flowing in sluggish rivulets   
before freezing to an amber stop amid the evergreen. 

//You only thought you were dead before, brother... It's   
all right. You will be, soon enough.//

"Here?"

Alex shook himself out of his reverie and smiled at Mulder.   
Ran his thumb over one too-pronounced cheekbone, drank in   
the brief nuzzle into his touch. Some things demand greed.   
"Yes. Yes, I think so."

Without another word, Mulder laid himself out on the   
blanket of snow and shut his eyes, a casual sprawl that   
couldn't have been more inviting had it been planned. Alex   
curled up with him, one leg and his arm staking shameless   
possession, and let his own eyes slip closed at the feel of   
a gentle hand shaping itself to his skull.

//I love you.//

******

An itch that had grown familiar announced the coming dawn.   
The familiarity was its own quiet shock, and Alex wondered   
just how long he'd been chasing this end himself... but it   
wasn't the time for self-analysis.

"Mulder."

The only acknowledgment was a slightly more forceful stroke   
of Alex's hair. It was enough. Alex brushed a kiss against   
the other man's thin t-shirt, spoke into his chest.

"You know I always loved you."

Mulder stiffened almost imperceptibly beneath him and Alex   
smiled, grateful for the passing of tears. "I know beloved,   
I know. It only made it worse..."

Alex waited another few moments, let the itch insinuate   
itself in his bones as something resembling pain. He knew   
Mulder could feel it, too.

"I want something."

"Yes, Alex?"

//So easy, for once... I will not be angry.//

"Kiss me, one last time?"

Mulder pulled him up by the nape and showed him his own   
tired, happy smile for just a few more waves of sunlit hurt   
before pulling him in for a kiss of hunger. Alex buried his   
fingers in the dusty fall of dark hair and gave in, tasting   
his love and his life, pressing himself as hard as he could   
into an answer he could only accept. 

And when he began to lose the feel of cool skin beneath his   
own for the flare and wash of the day, the agony was   
unbearable.

But it only lasted for a little while.

~~~~  
End.  
~~~~

End Note: Even though this is an AU of the AU, this is   
really, more or less, the way "Time" was supposed to end.   
Way back when I decided I wanted a hopeful ending   
instead... but this one wouldn't leave me alone. Again,   
thanks to Dawn Sharon for an image that dug in its   
claws and wouldn't let go.


	11. Snapshots -- AU!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex's time with Anatoly.

Anatoly leaned against the armoire and took in his lover's   
form. Still and lovely, seated on the burgundy coverlet.   
Sometimes he had to teach. Other times he only wished to   
fill the silences.

"You will leave me one day, and make your own... partner."

Alex remained silent.

Anatoly hid a quiet smile. "Get him to fix his hair, and to   
shave. An eternity with stubble is a--" He caught his own   
slip but it was much too late. 

Alex's voice was cold. "What would you have done had I   
been... imperfect... in your eyes?"

"Shaved you clean." And Anatoly wanted to call the words   
back, but he'd promised never to lie to this one. He could   
see Alexei gritting his teeth. He wondered if he dreamed of   
flight. 

"Alexei..."

Silence.

"Please speak to me."

"Forgive me, Anatoly, but I am reminded of rape."

"This cannot be unfamiliar to you--"

"I've never taken someone against their will!"

"You will, Alexei, you will."

"Such a fucking smug bastard, aren't you? Why did you   
*do* this to me?"

"Can you honestly say it was better before? The chill, the   
risk, the pain on cold nights? It's always so cold here..."

"The ends justify the means. I see." Alexei's voice was a   
marvel of professionalism, and it made Anatoly's throat   
ache. 

"Is it so awful to meet yourself?"

"It isn't to you?"

Anatoly reached out to touch the other man, halted the   
movement. "No. No, it isn't at all."

Alex pinched the bridge of his nose, breathed deep. "Just   
another change to get used to. Another life for me to lead.   
No, don't tell me of its beauty. Just... just leave me   
alone for now."

"Anything you wish."

******

Anatoly stared at the vaguely charred patch of ground by   
the dead tree, pretended for a moment to taste ash on the   
wind. A foolish fantasy, he was much too late for that.

"Alexei... so much waste. You were supposed to be mine   
forever."

He stayed for a time, and when he turned away, he did not   
leave the rose behind. He had brought it for just that   
purpose, but there was no joy in symbolism without   
someone to mock it with.

******

This  
Is  
Necessary.  
Life feeds on life feeds on life...  
\--"Disgustipated" by Tool

This was always the hardest part with the new ones -- the   
first kill. Anatoly turned away from the young woman   
struggling in his grasp and took in Alexei. The younger man  
was glassy-eyed, looking somewhat ill. Anatoly wondered if,   
perhaps, he should have waited until Alexei was truly   
starving. 

"Oh, God, I don't think I can--"

"Of course you can. Is it so wrong to enjoy what you've   
done your entire life?"

And it was easy then, as he had known it would be. Anatoly  
would never grow tired of killers. Afterward, Alexei   
crouched by the corpse, stroked her still face. 

"I feel... I feel..."

"You've never been so alive, have you?"

******

They sat on the couch, huddled under down and watching   
the fireplace. The glass firescreen was darkened carefully,   
but the flames were still lovely.

"Tell me a story, Anatoly."

"What do you want me to tell you, beautiful one?"

"Anything, anything at all. I'm cold--"

"It's because you fed too much."

"Yes, mama, I'm sorry, but hold me anyway and tell me a   
story."

"You take advantage of my cuddlesome nature."

Alex snuggled close. "Mmm... you can punish me for it   
later."

"I will, too."

Sharp lance of pain in his shoulder, a rough tongue diving   
in for a taste. "I know." There was a smile in Alex's   
voice. Perhaps he could learn to like the fur-lined   
manacles. 

"Shall I tell you of how it was? Of the one who made me?"

"Mm-hmm. I'd like to know who taught *you* how to speak   
in capitals."

"Ah, indoctrination stories. You are a fascist, beautiful   
one."

"I know, I'm terrible. I think that's at least two   
floggings you owe me now." 

"My count was eighteen."

Drowsy whisper. "Always with the exaggeration. Anyone ever   
tell you you were a drama queen?"

"Yes, but none of them are alive."

"Neither are we."

"Tsk. Semantics don't suit you."

"Mmm... good thing nudity and mass murder do, hmm?"

******

//I love you, I love you, I love you.//

"Yes, please Ana--"

Anatoly swept down Alex's body with kisses, needing to   
taste every inch, marveling at the will of his hands. They   
moved up along the other man's torso, a steady caress of   
desire, and Anatoly wished for forever. He would settle for   
this moment. 

******

Come here, I think you're beautiful.  
\-- "Some Kind of Stranger" Sisters of Mercy

Anatoly watched Alexei from the doorway. The younger man   
didn't move, but there was no rest in the stillness. No   
calm in the quiet.

"Why did you take me?"

Anatoly wondered if they'd ever be free of this particular   
conversation. He knew he should have asked, but he also   
knew refusal would not have been an option. Perhaps it   
was better this way. "I wanted you."

"And... that's all?"

"Does there need to be more?"

Alex waved his hand, a small motion of frustration mirrored   
by the -- seemingly magical -- appearance of a frown-line.   
It was easy to forget that this one had been older than he.   
"It just... Why should you be allowed to do that? And yes,   
I know it's a stupid question. Answer me anyway."

"Because I can. Alexei, you are in love with your self-  
discipline. Would you have had it had your life not been   
so... small?"

"And I'm angry now because you're striking at the very   
heart of my self-hood."

"You've been in the company of psychoanalysts, haven't  
you?"

A chuckle. "Forgive me, Ana, for I have sinned."

Anatoly restrained himself from pouncing on the man   
immediately, more to prove he could than for any other   
reason.

//Heavens save me from the generation of self-denial.//

Alex lay back on the bed, kicking one foot idly. "So...   
we've established that you took me because you could. But   
*why* did you want me?"

Anatoly moved to the head of the bed, found himself wishing  
for a twin for the very first time. "Are you fishing for   
compliments?"

A grin. "Shamelessly."

"Move up closer, then."

"What big teeth you have, grandma."

"And sharp, too."

Alex complied, a languid crawl that left his own mouth   
nestled against Ana's throat. Ana could feel his lips move,   
but couldn't quite make out the words.

"So you want to know why."

"Mm-hmm."

The vibration made him shiver.

//You make me feel so young--//

"You already know you're beautiful."

"Yes, and damned sexy."

Anatoly heard himself laugh and thought of shackles.   
Chains. Pretty prisons for this one...

"I'm also quite fond of confidence."

A nod, soft brush of hair tickling his face.

//Don't leave me.//

"And your careful meld of lies and truths in that little   
proposal--"

"Eh. I've had practice."

"It was still lovely."

"Did Peskow know...?"

Anatoly shrugged. "I'm not sure, really. I always let him   
keep his secrets."

A snort. "Does *anyone* beat him?"

"You can, if you wish."

"Yeah, but... it just wouldn't be the same now."

"You kids today, with all your rules..."

"Old man, if it wasn't for my rules I wouldn't have been   
here to be so soundly taken advantage of."

"I do like taking advantage of you."

Ana could feel the smile against his neck. "Hurt me."

"Anything you wish, Alexei."

******

And the sun goes down  
I watch you slip away  
And the sun goes down  
I walk into the waves  
And the sun goes down  
I watch you slip away  
And I would...

\--"Malibu" Hole

"Harder."

"Ana... Ana are you sure?"

You won't hurt--" Broken with a gasp. "Well... more than I  
want."

"Jesus, I feel like I'm going to bite it off."

"You won't, beautiful one. I was just kidding about that   
biologically female thing."

Chuff of laughter against his groin. "I don't want to hurt   
you, Ana..."

//Then don't leave.//

"Do it. Take me... I want it."

Alexei's mouth was a demon of teeth, the flick of tongue a   
shock despite the age and familiarity of the act. He could   
feel--

He could feel the pulse of blood as it left his body, and   
fantasized the ability to see his strength filling the   
younger man.

//I would give you everything. You will never forgive me   
for having done this to you...//

"Alexei, God--"

The moan around his length was as sweet and painful as   
anything between them. He needed more, but Alexei was   
giving all he could... 

Ana pushed him off with a frustrated grunt. Turned Alexei   
on his belly and dove in, tasting the ghosts of mortality,   
the dirt and reality always the same even with just the   
barest hint--

"Ana, Ana--"

There was no sacrifice to give Alexei this, no pleasure so   
great he could not share in it. He felt himself healing,   
but the blood was still slick. Ana slipped in to the hilt,   
pulled Alexei up by the hips and rode him hard. The cries   
were liquid, their music a sharp pain in his soul.

It seemed cruel to have only this for a reminder. To know   
himself be-souled and something like human only when he   
ached for a love he'd never have. But Ana had always seen   
the worth in such things, and he knew this memory would   
stay with him always.

Even if the man would not.

******

Anatoly buried his face against Alexei's throat, and began   
to tug at his clothes. For once, Alexei wasn't helping. 

"But I'm so *hungry*, Ana."

"Tsk. You kids today. 'But Anaaaa! It's been so *long*   
since I've killed anyone truly interesting.'"

"Mmm... I'll settle for chubby and ready to die."

Anatoly sighed dramatically, placed his fingertips to his   
temples and closed his eyes. "I see... I see you cutting a   
swathe through teenaged American girls."

Moderately shocked laughter. "Christ, that's sick."

"Mm-hmm. Hurry and feed, beautiful one, I want to lick   
you clean."

******

Oh, baby  
I'm so tired...  
\-- "I Would" by Jane's Addiction

Anatoly stood behind his lover, watching him adjust his   
bow tie minutely in the antique mirror. It seemed too soon  
for this, for sending his lover to hunt alone. To let   
Alexei choose a role to play. Ana smiled ruefully, briefly   
considered muttering something about children trying to   
run before they'd learn to walk properly. A brief quirk of   
the younger man's eyebrow was all the stifling he required  
to hold back the thought. However...

"There are things you must remember, Alexei."

A sigh. "Like what?"

"We do this -- learn their names, touch them gently --   
because we must remember that we are not gods."

Alexei was thoughtful. "A touchstone to lost humanity."

"Something like that... though I like the way 'God' and   
'Anatoly' sound in the same sentence."

"I seem to recall 'God' and 'Alexei' in the same sentence,   
too."

"A fluke."

"You have all the answers, don't you?"

"Comes with age."

"Like wisdom?"

"No, beautiful one. Wisdom comes only with pain."

Alexei smiled at him, brushed soft lips over his cheek, and  
walked out the door. "Then let me be a fool."

Anatoly closed his eyes, but did not turn to see him go.   
"Anything you wish."


	12. Snapshots II: Alex -- AU!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The early days from Alex's POV.

Just one kiss  
From my lips...  
\--"Killer Wolf" by Danzig

"OK, guys, what's the joke?"

Silence, but three pairs of eyes glittered at him with   
palpable mirth. Alex remembered Peskow's palpable   
resentment at being called out of retirement. Wondered if   
the old bastard had set him up.

"This one, Ana?"

"Yes, Natalia, I think so."

The one called Ana was thin, and perhaps two or three   
inches shorter than Alex. His hair was dark and elegantly   
styled. Almost too elegant. His eyes were blue and

//dangerous//

compelling. Alex looked toward the exit, but he suddenly   
felt a thousand pounds heavier. Feeble and trapped in  
the antique wing chair.

"What... what did you give me?" His voice was slow and   
slurred on his tongue. He felt stupid with languor. A blink   
and they were arrayed before him, Natalia and the other   
man stroking his arm, Ana nuzzling his face. Sniffing him  
with apparent pleasure.

"Nothing, Alexei. Yet."

The knowledge dawned on him with a bright horror,   
piercing the haze, shattering in his mind.

"Christ, no--"

The first bite was a subtle nick into the inside of his   
elbow, the second a vicious one to the wrist. Before he   
could cry out Ana claimed his mouth with his own, and his   
tongue was cool and rough. The scream dissolved into a   
shivering moan. He had never wanted the love of dead   
things.

"Hush, beautiful one. It will be over soon."

And when the teeth sank into his throat he no longer had  
either the will or ability to scream.

******

One must eat the other who runs free before him.   
Put them right into his mouth,  
While fantasizing  
The beauty of his movements.   
A sensation not unlike  
Slapping yourself in the face...  
\-- "Of Course" by Jane's Addiction

Alex stood on the balcony in the Hall, taking in the scene  
below. All the chandeliers were lit, the elegant mosaic of  
the floor waxed to a brilliant shine. Josef, tall and   
broad, held a matronly woman by one wrist, arm around her   
thick waist. Natalia, a knife-blade thin woman draped in   
ancient lace, gripped a young boy by the shoulders. The   
mortals were struggling helplessly, heads tossing from side   
to side, cursing fluently. Josef and Natalia were utterly   
still, faces frozen in a mockery of gaiety. Mannequins of   
marble. Josef was painted like a clown above his impeccable   
tuxedo. 

The music started, a slow grind of Strauss from some hidden  
record player, and the vampires began to dance. A graceful,  
implacable whirl, mortals following helplessly. One of the   
farmboy's legs slipped out awkwardly, and the sickening   
crack of a broken ankle sent echoes throughout the room.

Alex remembered endless scenes of tragedy from the   
American news, how the foreign cries of suffering had their  
own music. He wondered when the sound of Russian had  
become so horrifyingly beautiful. So meaningless.

"Why... why are they doing this?"

Anatoly spoke from behind him. "It's only a game, my   
beautiful one."

"But it seems so... cruel."

"The best games are."

Alex winced, turned away.

"Alexei... it isn't just cruel for the victims, you know."

"How do you mean? Isn't this is all about distance? Seems  
rather cowardly, Anatoly."

"And you knew all their names? Kissed the children? Fucked  
the wives?"

"That's not--"

"No, I know. But it isn't about distance at all. Later,   
Natalia will remember what it was like to weep. Josef will   
stroke his wife's wedding gown until it starts to crumble a   
little more."

"The rebirth of memory... Is this... is this the only way   
it can be done?"

Anatoly slipped his arms around Alex's waist, rested his   
head between the shoulderblades. "We all find our own   
ways."

******

This life--  
This life is great.  
\-- "Better When You're Not Alone" by Black Crowes

Alex tamped the last sods into place and opened himself to   
the aging night. It was time to head home, but Anatoly   
pounced before he could get far.

Alex giggled. "What are you *doing*?"

"You're a very messy eater, beautiful one."

The slide and rasp of the older man's tongue was impossible  
to resist. Such a simple thing -- old and animalistic. He   
felt primitive and strong. He felt the world turn, and   
wondered if he'd live to see the stars change. 

"Mmm... yes, kiss me, Ana--"

"Another reason to have a... partner, Alexei. No, no, not   
here... but you'll forgive me if I just take a little   
taste, yes?"

Velvet slide of teeth into his throat and Alex felt his   
spine melt. There was pain -- no way to deny that -- but   
Anatoly was strong around him. A cool wall of affection and   
his need was clear and clean. He felt a fleeting urge to   
surrender totally -- lean back and offer his new life as a   
gift for this pleasure -- but he knew Ana would be   
offended.

And he truly didn't wish for death. 

******

A city of candles...  
I am a proud man anyway.  
\--"Three Days" by Jane's Addiction

Alex took in the bedroom with stunned horror. Every surface   
save for the bed itself was adorned with candles, all   
white, all in various stages of melt. The sweet and mildly   
nutty scent of wax filled the air. 

"Jesus, Ana! What is this, the vampire version of an   
obstacle course? I didn't feed *that* much last night."

"I almost wish I'd kept you and fed you for a little while   
first..."

Alex felt his mouth twist. This would never be a   
comfortable issue. "And why is that?"

"You have the look of a man who needs a belly, beautiful   
one."

"An eternity of chub? No thanks, Ana."

"Tsk. In the old days--"

Alex shut him up with a kiss. A simple ploy, but he didn't   
feel up to much else. He was sleepy with the weight of his   
victims and Ana's mouth was a temptation not to be denied.

After a time Alex pulled away, the tang of iron a familiar   
spice to his affection. "Why the candles?"

"Atmosphere, beautiful one. You should never underestimate  
the power of stage-dressing."

"Drama queen."

"You've mentioned that."

Alex chuckled, nuzzled into the other man's throat and   
began to nudge him carefully backwards toward the bed. "And  
why do we need atmosphere tonight, Ana?"

The taste of the older man's skin was a mystery, as always.   
Too faint to be sweat, a ghost of mortality crumbled. When   
the silence lengthened he was unsurprised, having long   
grown accustomed to the incoherency of lust. It was one   
touchstone among many and he would hold to that.

A moan, and he thought of the plane ticket in his battered  
coat -- they had never shopped for a new one -- he thought  
of the games he would play once back on American shores.  
There was business to be taken care of, however   
meaningless in the light of his new life.

Alex wanted something he couldn't quite name, and the  
man beneath him could not provide it. But there was no   
sadness in the thought -- he had forever, after all, and   
the thought of meeting Anatoly again in a year or ten   
was pleasant. 

For now, though, there were harsh cries and a tide of iron   
to take his pleasure in. He had long since learned that   
regret in times like these was a game for fools.

~~~~  
End.  
~~~~


	13. Snapshots III: Mulder -- AU!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A look at things from Mulder's POV.

Moonlight on black water and Alex was still, so still. He   
should have been dancing. Mulder was. But then he looked  
down at himself, lazy loose sprawl on a high dune, and   
realized the rhythm was only in his head. Or perhaps in   
the air.

Sea wash and night birds crying to the stars... 

//My God.//

This was the endless and he was a part of it, and would   
always be. Never to change again, never die. Mulder felt   
something clench, and was surprised to see sand running   
from his fist, gentle salt-breeze carrying it to where his   
lover stood. Alex had his face to the sky, as if calling   
something, or perhaps listening.

Mulder thrummed with the power of the universe, even   
if it was really only the blood of the little old man now   
some 4 feet below him.

//Will it always be this way?

//Why doesn't... something... rail at me? Strike me   
down?//

Mulder thought of how it should've been, growing old and   
achy, or gasping out his last on some anonymous stretch   
of stained pavement. He wondered if he'd have come back,   
somehow. Some fore-destined life now crushed out without  
the basic essence of his soul to make it real. He wondered   
if this was the real truth beyond the biological devoids:   
predators walking the night roads forever, clutching   
greedily at stolen infinity, while their new bodies lived   
soulless.

//Mine forever, and given to no other.//

Something seized at his ankle and Mulder came to himself  
with a start. Alex was staring up at him happily, though   
he looked too neat. His hair was too short to be ruffled by  
the wind.

"Time to go, beloved."

******

He felt the sun go down from within the web of his dreams.   
A soothing darkness to hide him from his enemies, from his  
life. 

//All gone...//

He was safe again, and there were cool lips with just a   
hint of softness pressing into his neck. There would be a   
voice soon, he knew, and he clutched to the web a little   
while longer, fragile strands breaking within his grasp,   
one by one.

"Always, Mulder, always. I didn't know I loved you but I   
did..."

Whisper of husk and shameless adoration. Shameless when  
Mulder's eyes were closed, at least. This pain was bright,   
and Mulder could no longer stand such things... unless he   
could tell himself he dreamed.

"... so much I can give you now... anything you want,   
anything..."

******

Mulder watched Alex leave for the hunt with a mixture of   
pride and apprehension. He'd already hunted himself, would   
not need to feed for several days... and he still did not   
care to do so with the other man. He didn't think he'd ever   
be able to understand how he could get so close to his   
victims -- smiling, learning their names, making them   
laugh -- and *still* rip their throats out.

Alex had tried to explain it as a memory tool, a touchstone  
to humility, but Mulder had never been one to say grace at  
meals. And he saw no purpose in holding close to a species  
he was no part of, anymore. 

He wondered, though. Alex had spoken of it as though it   
were a Rule, and, as far as he knew, only Anatoly had seen  
fit to burn such things into his brain. Or perhaps Anatoly   
was the only one he'd *let* do that. Not for the first   
time, Mulder wondered just what their time together had   
been like...

"I'd take him back, you know."

"You've mentioned that." Anatoly's presence was not much  
of a shock... the man seemed to force the air from a room.

"Sorry, I really don't like repeating myself."

"Except for idiots like me?"

A muffled laugh from behind and Mulder turned to face him,  
leaning back against the plate glass window Alex alternated   
between eyeing suspiciously and treasuring. Atmosphere. 

"I understand you'll be leaving here soon?"

"Too far north, summer's coming, etc. Why are you here,   
Anatoly?"

"You could call me Ana."

"I could kick your Continental ass."

"You could try."

Mulder sighed, squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to   
either make the other man vanish by mysticism or to figure   
out precisely why he was angry, he couldn't decide which.   
When he opened them, Anatoly was seated comfortably on his   
couch. 

"I have no problems repeating myself. Why are you here?"

"Call it a follow-up visit, Mulder."

"Checking the progress of the difficult patient?"

"If you'd like."

Mulder just stared, and Anatoly returned the look blandly.   
Mulder wondered how long it would take to grow strong   
enough to snap the older man's neck.

"Centuries."

"That's very irritating."

"Yes."

Mulder broke off the stare and went to the kitchen, opened   
the refrigerator -- empty of course -- and wondered again   
why the hell Alex had insisted on buying the thing.

"Keeping the nicer bodies?" 

Mulder answered without thinking. "No, no, they're in the   
shed."

Pleased laughter. Mulder could almost feel the hand raising   
itself to ruffle his hair. 

//What a good monster.//

"Alex broke me of that habit."

"Yes, Alex. I heard you the first time, you know. I love   
him, and he loves me, etc., forever, always, blah, blah,   
blah."

"You have all the romance of a goat."

"You've dated many goats?"

"Times were hard in the dark ages."

Mulder heard himself laugh and gave up. "Can I offer you   
something? Wax apple? Maybe some nice incense?"

But Anatoly was gone.

******

Mulder pounced as soon as Alex walked in the door, slammed  
him face-first into the carpet. Grey now in the new home.   
Mulder had already called for new to be installed. Indigo.   
Though he had to admit a pattern of sprawled Alexes might  
add just the proper something to the utterly dull color.

"You're lucky I like this sort of thing, Mulder."

No one should be allowed to sound that sexy with his nose   
flattened by floor. It might have had something to do with   
his position straddling Alex's hips, though.

"... you wanted?"

"Hmmm...?"

Alex flipped himself over, careful to dislodge Mulder as   
little as possible. "I asked if there was something you   
wanted?"

The gleam in Alex's eyes was lovely, but still shadowed. He  
was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Mulder only became   
aware of the frown on his face by its mirror. Alex caught   
his hand, ran his thumb over his palm. 

"What's wrong...?"

Another unspoken 'beloved' and, abruptly, Mulder had had   
enough of himself. In this at least he could give a little.   
He flattened himself along Alex's body, nipped lightly at   
his lip before settling himself by one terrifyingly lovely   
ear.

"Alex..."

A shiver from beneath and lips pressed against his own ear.  
"What can I give you?"

"Whisper in my ear... like you used to when you thought I   
slept."

Alex stiffened for a harsh moment before relaxing again.   
When his voice came, it was a low rasp of pain. "What are   
you asking me, Mulder?"

"Tell me you love me."

Mulder felt the brush of lashes against his cheek, knew the   
eyes had closed in the weight of relief. 

"You are my beloved--"

"Forever." And Mulder kissed him softly, leaned easily into   
the rough caress.

"I'll give you anything..."

Another kiss. "Forever."

The words continued to spill, a jumble of languages, quiet   
sounds of answered need, whispers of an eternity of dreams,   
miracles calm and easy within reach. And Mulder was   
grateful for the passage of tears, wanting nothing to halt   
his promises of forever at each expectant pause. 

Life and love. Alex for an age of night.


End file.
